Skip to main content
The Novelist's Film film image, director Hong Sangsoo

The Novelist's Film

So-seol-ga-ui yeong-hwa

This event has passed

Canadian Premiere

Fresh from competing at the 72nd annual Berlin International Film Festival, audience favourite Hong Sangsoo returns to VIFF with his latest film.

Novelist Junhee (Lee Hyeyoung) is taking a break from writing, going on a daytrip to a small town to visit an old friend’s bookstore. Their reminiscing of years gone by turns into a discussion of a local public garden, one of the town’s must-see local attractions. It’s there on a leisurely stroll that Junhee has a chance encounter with a famous actress and a former colleague, a movie director. Suddenly, an aimless afternoon reignites an idea that Junhee has been ruminating for some time: what if she were to write and direct her own film?

Variety calls Hong Sangsoo’s 28th feature a “gently circuitous, conversation-driven charmer.” Shot almost entirely in black and white and featuring semi-improvised performances from a cast of Hong regulars, including Kim Minhee and Kwon Haehyo, The Novelist’s Film is an effortless and playful look at how a single day spent with friends, both old and new, can realign an artist’s purpose.

 

Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize, Berlin 2022

 

Media Partner

Director

Hong Sangsoo

Cast

Lee Hyeyoung, Kim Minhee, Seo Younghwa, Park Miso, Kwon Haehyo, Cho Yunhee

Credits
Country of Origin

South Korea

Year

2022

Language

In Korean with English subtitles

Film Contact
Links
18+
92 min
Award Winners Drama

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

Peter Hujar's Day

Dir. Ira Sachs
76 min

Ben Whishaw is extraordinary in this conjuring trick of a movie from Ira Sachs (Passages), a minimalist masterpiece recreating a conversation between New York photographer Hujar and writer Linda Rosenkrantz in 1974.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Jay Kelly

Dir. Noah Baumbach
130 min

In Noah Baumbach's wise and witty comedy, George Clooney plays Jay Kelly, a world-famous movie star touring Europe with his friend and manager, Ron (Adam Sandler). Faced with nagging dissatisfaction, Jay starts to ask himself some tough questions.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Sembene!

Dir. Jason Silverman & Samba Gadjigo
89 min

Sembene! tells the unbelievable true story of the father of African cinema, the self-taught novelist and filmmaker who fought, against enormous odds, a 50-year battle to return African stories to Africans.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

My Father's Glory

Dir. Yves Robert
110 min

Yves Robert's bucolic adaptation of the first memoir by Marcel Pagnol, a loving evocation of a childhood summer holiday in the mountains of Provence, a time when the ten-year-old author fell in love with nature.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Caravaggio

Dir. David Bickerstaff & Phil Grabsky
100 min

In the latest from Exhibition on Screen, co-directors David Bickerstaff and Phil Grabsky shed light not only on Caravaggio's paintings, but his life, often kept half-hidden in the same chiaroscuro tones he shaded his masterpieces with.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Orwell: 2+2=5

Dir. Raoul Peck
119 min

Oscar-nominated director Raoul Peck reimagines 1984 in this urgent essay on power, language, and control. With narration by Damian Lewis, it’s a chilling portrait of how Orwell’s warnings became our reality.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Credits

Executive Producer

Hong Sangsoo

Producer

Hong Sangsoo

Screenwriter

Hong Sangsoo

Cinematography

Hong Sangsoo

Editor

Hong Sangsoo

Original Music

Hong Sangsoo