Skip to main content
Winter Light film image; man fully hunched over a desk with a pencil held limp in his hand

Winter Light

Gyeourui Bit

Spotlight on Korea

This event has passed

International Premiere

Cho Hyun-suh’s film is attuned to the poetry in silences, the tension in talk, and the paradox when dedication to one person often means neglect, or even betrayal, of another. Da-bin (Sung Yu-been) is quite burdened for an adolescent: his mother is broke, he’s got a runaway brother, and his little sister is going deaf. Trudging through each day with academic, romantic, social, and economic pressure weighing him down, he nonetheless finds moments of happiness with his best friend Jung-won (Lim Jae-Hyeok) and girlfriend Jae-un (Kang Min-ju).

Cho gets strong performances from Sung, Cha Jun-hui as his adorable younger sibling, and Lee Seung-yeon as his mother. As Da-bin’s thuggish pal Jung-won, Lim radiates menace and pathos in equal measure, and Kang is restrained and graceful as the girl our hero may not be able to hold on to. Cho’s visual style is clean and concise, while still conveying the feel of winter in all its blankness and severity.

 

Oct 5 & 7: Q&A

 

Cooperating Organizations

                       

Media Partner

Vanchosun logo

Community Partner

           

Director
Cast

Sung Yu-been, Cha Jun-hui, Lee Seung-yeon

Credits
Country of Origin

South Korea

Year

2025

Language

In Korean with English subtitles

18+
90 min
Award Winners Cinemas of Asia Drama Family Relations

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits & Director

Producer

Jeong Young-joon

Screenwriter

Cho Hyun-suh

Cinematography

Jung Woon-chun

Editor

Han Ji-yoon

Production Design

Suh Joo-yeon

Original Music

Lee Soo-yeon

Cho Hyun-suh headshot

Cho Hyun-suh

Born in 1995, director Cho Hyun-suh studied directing at the Korean Academy of Film Arts and has directed short films including Tree (2020) and Nobody’s Land (2021). Winter Light is his debut feature film.

Filmography: Tree (2020); Nobody’s Land (2021)

Missing VIFF? Check Out What's Playing at the VIFF Centre

Day of Wrath

Dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer
97 min

Anna, the young second wife of a well-respected but much older pastor, falls in love with her stepson when he returns to their small seventeenth-century village. Stepping outside the bounds of the village's harsh moral code has disastrous results.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

House of Hope

Dir. Marjolein Busstra
93 min

"House of Hope" is the name of a Waldorf elementary school near Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, founded by Manar and her husband Milad. This documentary follows their efforts to go about their lives before, during, and after the events of October 7.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
NAZA
Naza film image; two people sitting in a foggy night with skyscrapers in the background

NAZA

Dir. Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
80 min

NAZA is a codeword euphemistically used by Israeli intelligence to indicate the number of civilians it expects will be killed in an airstrike. This chilling documentary exposes the policy and process of state-sanctioned mass killings.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

You Had to Be There

Dir. Nick Davis
98 min

In a strange quirk of fate, the legendary Toronto '72 production of the musical comedy Jesus hit Godspell launched a constellation of comedy stars, all unknown at the time but now known to us as Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Victor Garber, et al

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Atonement
Atonement film image; person running through smoke

Atonement

Dir. Reed Van Dyk
118 min

A former Marine suffering from PTSD seeks a meeting with the Iraqi family to which he did great wrong ten years earlier in the Gulf War. Atonement navigates challenging, politically-charged psychological territory with diligence and sensitivity.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
The Sandbox
The Sandbox film image; perspective from inside an open box with a face peering into it

The Sandbox

Dir. Kenya-Jade Pinto
90 min

Borders are the faultlines of the world. Kenya-Jade Pinto's doc examines how modern surveillance technology, bio-metrics and AI are combining to make land and sea borders as impenetrable as air travel, and suggests the unspoken cost is our own humanity.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre