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Director’s Profile

The director was born in 1976 in Seoul, Korea. After making his award-winning short films "Templementary" and "125 JEON Seung-chul," Park Jungbum became an Assistant Director to Lee Chang-dong for his award-winning film, "Poetry" (winner of Best Screenplay at 2010 Cannes Film Festival). He then produced his own feature debut film "The Journals of Musan" in 2009. After premiering at 2010 Busan International Film Festival, the film won him the New Currents Award and the FIPRESCI Award. Since then, "The Journals of Musan" has received enthusiastic responses from many international festivals and won a long list of awards, such as the Grand Prix Award at Marrakech Int’l Film Festival, Tiger Awards and FIPRESCI Award at Rotterdam, Best New Narrative Director at Tribeca, Grand Prize at Off Plus Camera, and Grand Prix at Mirror International Film Festival.

Synopsis

In a remote mountain village, Jung-chul works at a factory that makes traditional soybean paste (Doenjang). He’s been dreaming of making a home where he can live out his days with the love of his life. But Jung-chul`s dream is shattered when his father opts for a tennis court over a house. Worse still, he finds that his love no longer shares his hopes and dreams. Jung-chul decides to leave them both behind, and heads for Seoul. After a fierce struggle to survive in the city, Jung-chul seeks out his older brother out of loneliness. His brother’s life is as hard but the brothers greet each other with joy. But the happy reunion ends shortly when his brother finds about Jung-chul’s robbery. But Jung-chul believes in striving to live by any means than his brother who’s giving up on life.
Jung-chul fights against the people who are living as fakes under the shadows of the city, but he becomes a total wreck. And after asking his brother to live on, to survive, he heads back home. It’s still snowing back in the mountains with the soybean paste ripening. Sounds of the tennis balls bouncing echo at the tennis court his father has built.

Achievements

2014 Busan International Film Festival
2014 Locarno Film Festival
2014 Toronto International Film Festival
2014 Jeonju International Film Festival
2014 Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival
2014 Singapore International Film Festival
2014 AFI Fest
2014 The London Korean Film Festival
2014 Mar del Plata International Film Festival
2014 Tokyo FILMeX Festival
2014 Migrating Forms Film Festival
2015 International Film Festival Rotterdam
2015 Hong Kong International Film Festival
2015 San Francisco International Film Festival
2015 BLACK MOVIE Film Festival
2015 Geneva Film Festival
2015 Goteborg Film Festival
2015 Florence Korea Film Festival
2015 Minneapolis St Paul International Film Festival
2015 Munich International Film Festival
2015 Melbourne International Film Festival

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