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ARCHIVE

25th(2023)



Next Sohee

July JUNG

  • South Korea
  • 2022
  • 138min
  • DCP
  • color

SYNOPSIS

Sohee is an energetic and dance-loving eighteen-year-old high school student. She is about to graduate and go on a field placement, which begins to change her gradually. Detective Yujin, who has returned to work after a long absence, discovers a new fact during an investigation and follows its traces.

 

PROGRAM NOTE

Next Sohee, directed by July Jung, cinematize the incident in 2017 when a high school student committed suicide while interning at a call center for a major telecommunication company in Jeonju, South Korea. This event exposed the harsh working conditions and exploitation in the name of on-the-job training, leading to widespread outrage. However, despite the public outcry, little improvement was made in the labor environment, and many continue to suffer without even basic protections, still collapsing on the job. That is why the film's title is not ¡°Sohee¡±, the protagonist's name, but ¡°Next Sohee.¡± In the first half, the film focuses on the character Sohee, who leaves the internship but faces pressure from the company about her performance. It depicts the school's callousness, only concerned with employment rates as they send students to work without relevance to their majors, and the harsh reality of young laborers who endure emotional labor without protection. While the film could have ended as a brutal drama realistically portraying the harsh aura of truth, it takes a different direction in the latter part, following the perspective of detective Yujin. She is assigned to investigate the case and pose a significant question of ¡°answerability.¡± However, Yujin¡¯s gaze leads to an absent presence, an unanswerable void. In the end, the space of this ¡°void gazed¡± returns to unanswerability. The presence of Sohee, digitally restored and addressed in the dance practice room at the end of the film, poses an even heavier question. [BAE Juyeon]

Director

  • July JUNGJuly JUNG

    July Jung, with her feature film debut, A Girl at My Door (2013), garnered international attention in Un Certain Regard of the Cannes Film Festival. Her films were invited to the Toronto IFF, Chicago IFF, and London IFF. Jung won New Director at the Baeksang Arts Awards and the Buil Film Awards. After eight years from the release of A Girl at My Door, Jung returned with Next Sohee, which secured two consecutive selections at the Cannes Film Festival and became the first Korean film to be chosen as the closing film for the Critics¡¯ Week at Cannes.

     

Credit

  • Producer±èµ¿ÇÏ, ±èÁö¿¬ KIM Dong-ha, KIM Ji-yeon
  • Cast ¹èµÎ³ª, ±è½ÃÀº BAE Doona, KIM Si-eun
  • Screenwriter Á¤ÁÖ¸® July JUNG
  • Cinematography ±èÀÏ¿¬ KIM Il-yeon
  • Editor ÀÌ¿µ¸², ÇÑÁöÀ± LEE Young-lim, HAN Ji-youn