The 18th JEONJU Project Award Winners Revealed!
K-DOC CLASS
SJM Cultural Foundation Rough Cut Booster
Vision Correction | Director KO Duhyun, Producer YANG Juyeon
JEONJU Lab
JICA Award
About my boyfriend | Director VAN Siian, YUN Jéro, Producer KIM Hwa-beom
A Woman Dancing on the Waves | Director CHOI Sedam, Producer Kim Ilkwon
JEONJU Cine Complex Award
Yeo | Director CHO Hanna
The Quiet Inheritance | Director Jungeun Sua CHOI, Producer KIM Daehyun
Second Development Grant
Nazaré, Nazaré, Nazaré (Working Title) | Director Eric LEE, Producer Ray L. Hong
About my boyfriend | Director VAN Siian,YUN Jéro, Producer KIM Hwa-beom
The Quiet Inheritance | Director Jungeun Sua CHOI, Producer KIM Daehyun
JEONJU Lab: Short JEONJU Cine Complex Support
Lampo di Vita | Director YANG Eunkyung, Producer SUNG Jihye
Teum | Director SONG Jinkyung, Producer LEE Jeesoo
Second Production Support Grant (FUJIFILM KOREA )
Lampo di Vita | Director YANG Eunkyung, Producer SUNG Jihye
Work-in-Progress
Work-in-Progress Distribution Grant
Wrinkles of Life | Director LEE Sangmoon, Producer AN Suyoun
JEONJU Project
FURMO DT English Subtitle Production Support
Together Again | Director LEE Dayoung
The Quiet Inheritance | Director CHOI Sua Jungeun, Producer KIM Daehyun
DVcat Award
The Quiet Applause | Director BYUN Sungbin, Producer LEE Kyeongmin
Wrinkles of Life | Director LEE Sangmoon, Producer AN Suyoun
Documentary Focus Award
A Woman Dancing on the Waves | Director CHOI Sedam, Producer KIM Ilkwon
JEONJU International Film Festival JEONJU Project X JEONJU CAST(GHOST STUDIO)
JEONJU CAST Award
Together Again | Director LEE Dayoung
Jury Statement
JEONJU Lab | Fiction
We also extend our encouragement and support to the four directors who devoted themselves wholeheartedly to the demanding process of developing treatments into screenplays over the course of just two short months.
The selection process was not intended to rank projects against one another. Rather, in keeping with the spirit of a “Lab,” the focus was on works that demonstrated the greatest growth and transformation during the two-month period.
Together Again closely examines the relationships between a mother and her sister, the sisters and their father, and dynamics within a Japanese family, exploring the love and resentment they hold for one another.
As the story evolved, the characters came into sharper focus and the emotional density deepened significantly. If the director pushes further into the singular perspective that only she can bring, the result could be a film that lingers with audiences long after the credits roll.
About my boyfriend offers an intimate portrait of a young man navigating love and anxiety of a young man while living as a foreigner in Korea.
Through the love story of Xian and Xuebi, we hope to see a sharp portrayal of contemporary youth and the diasporic experience.
Hateful Hearts follows an adoptee named Woo-jin, who meets Hee-ran during a tour of Bologna, where the two begin to share their inner worlds.
The film’s strength lies in the witty rhythm of its lengthy dialogue and its ability to uncover well-timed humor within situations that might otherwise feel heavy.
With further refinement of its structure and setup to match that energy, the film has the potential to become truly compelling.
Relationship and Fiction is a project built around a provocative and daring premise. With bold honesty, the story follows Young-won, who fantasizes about having a physical relationship with a prison inmate despite being in a stable relationship with her boyfriend. By delving even deeper into the premise, the project could evolve into something genuinely original.
We look forward with great excitement to the day all four films meet audiences in theaters.
JEONJU Lab | Documentary
All four projects selected for JEONJU Lab developed richer and more sophisticated narrative structures through two rounds of mentoring and emerged with stronger thematic coherence in their storytelling. The projects chosen for the second round of development funding were selected based on both the qualitative leaps demonstrated during the mentoring process and the practical need for support to move them into the next stage of development.
Nazaré, Nazaré, Nazaré underwent the boldest structural transformation during the mentoring process. Moving away from its earlier narrative focus on the protagonist’s intense struggle, the film expanded its scope to explore his relationships with the people around him. In doing so, it evolved into a work following three men confronting the tides of their own lives, highlighting a meaning of life more valuable than simple notions of victory or defeat.
The Quiet Inheritance, which tells the story of a Korean woman who unexpectedly inherits the estate of her German neighbor, gained considerable depth by reframing inheritance not merely as property but as the trajectory of life. As the elderly German woman’s past was more fully fleshed out, the relationship between the two women grew far more layered and convincing.
A Woman Dancing on the Waves sets out to reconstruct the life of the director’s grandmother, whose identity had long been obscured behind the label of “shamaness.” By consolidating similar scenes, the project achieved a clearer and more cohesive overall structure.
Yeo observes a group of hometown friends living between the glittering past and faded present of Yeosu through the gaze of the film’s director, positioned at the margins, reflecting on the relationship between people and place. The project raises strong anticipation for how the director’s perspective will transform Yeosu’s landscape, deeply shaped by the lives of its young residents.
We wish all four projects the very best as they continue to take shape in ways that fully realize their own distinct color.
JEONJU Lab: Shorts
Lampo di Vita unfolds from the premise that multiple streams of time flow through a single body and weaves together scenes of forgiveness and reconciliation with the past. Through a protagonist shaped by the not-so-distant chapters of Korea’s modern history, the film demonstrates deft narrative control through its uncanny, fantastical sensibility.
Work-in-Progress
The story of a daughter and her father with dementia, bound together by both love and resentment, is rendered with striking realism through a multilayered and emotionally complex narrative
