'Poetry' wins Cannes best screenplay prize
Korean film "Poetry" won the best screen play prize at the Cannes film festival on Sunday, news reports said.
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| South Korean director Lee Chang-dong poses after winning the Best Screenplay award for his film "Poetry" during the photocall of the closing ceremony at the 63rd Cannes Film Festival on May 23, 2010 in Cannes. (AP-Yonhap News) | The film, directed by Lee Chang-dong, tells a story of an old lady who finds happiness in learning of poetry for the first time in her life while a harsh reality forces her to suffer guilt and fear, Yonhap News said.
The film “Ha Ha Ha” by South Korean director Hong Sang-soo won the top prize at the Cannes film festival sidebar competition, Un Certain Regard, on Sunday.
The movie is about a trip down memory lane with a filmmaker and a movie critic sharing memories about their separate trips to Tongyoung, South Gyeongsang Province.
South Korean top actors and actresses including Kim Sang-gyung, Yu Jun-sang, Moon So-ri, Ye Ji-won and Youn Yuh-jung starred in the film, receiving no compensation. Hong has a reputation of making movies in such a way.
“I hope this prize can help many friends who made the movie together. I am going to keep on making movies, in the same way I used to make them,” said Hong after winning the prize. Actor Yu Jun-sang and actress Ye Ji-won were by his side at the festival.
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| From left, the cast of "Ha Ha Ha", actress Youn Yuh-jung, actor Yu Joonsang, actress Ye Jiwon, and director Hong Sang-soo, arrive for the the premiere of "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives", at the 63rd international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Friday, May 21, 2010. (AP Photo/Mark Mainz) | Hong said the prize money of 51 million won ($42,700) will be used to support the movie’s distribution in France.
“It is not a big amount of money but can be a big support in distributing small-scale movies such as ‘Ha Ha Ha,’” he said.
“My movies are something people can feel at ease with. But sometimes they do not even get the chance to be shown to the public because of their ‘image’ as a difficult art film. I hope this win can boost the number of viewers for my movies.”
Hong had been invited to the world’s biggest film festival six times -- the most frequently invited among South Korean directors -- but this is the first time he has won a prize.
Other works by Hong that were shown at Cannes include “The Power of Kangwon Province” (1998), “Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors” (2000), “Woman is the Future of Man” (2004), “Tale of Cinema” (2005) and “Like You Know It All” (2009).
It is also the first time that a South Korean movie has won the top prize at the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes film festival since director Lee Doo-yong’s “Moulleya, Moulleya” was first invited to the competition 26 years ago. “Mother,” by director Bong Joon-ho had also entered the category last year but did not win a prize.
The win is especially notable as the competition was extra tough this year. Films by world-famous directors such as “I Wish I Knew” by Jia Zhangke, “The Strange Case of Angelica” by Manuel de Oliviera and “Film Socialism” by Jean-Luc Godard were in the competition along with Hong’s.
Un Certain Regard gave its jury prize to “Octubre” by Peruvian brothers Daniel and Diego Vega, who were awarded on their first visit to Cannes.
Adela Sanchez, Eva Bianco and Victoria Raposo, three actresses in the Argentinean film “Los Labios” by Ivan Fund and Santiago Loza, won the best acting prizes.
By Park Min-young (claire@heraldm.com)
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