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Director’s Profile

Starting with As Always Sunday (1998), Leesong Hee-il has directed nine short films, and made his official feature-length debut with No Regret (2006), which premiered at the Busan International Film Festival. He went on to direct Desertion (2009), White Night (2012), and Night Flight (2014). His films have been selected for several international film festivals, including the Berlin International Film Festival.

Synopsis

One day, mother disappears.

Cha Eun-sook is a 55-year-old, practically unknown writer of eighties stories, which no one reads or cares about. On the evening of the premiere of her new book, Swallow, an old man visits her and she disappears without a trace. At first, her son, Ho-yeon, assumes she went on a trip, but soon begins to suspect something is wrong and goes in search of his mother. Where could she have gone? Following the son’s journey to find his mother, a family secret spanning thirty years unfolds.

In 1983, as Chun Doo-hwan’s euphemistically titled ‘greenization’ program is in full force, young activists are drafted into the army against their will, mysterious, unidentified corpses appear, and students are forced, under torture, to act as government informants.
This is a gradually unfolding love story; revolving around Cha Eun-sook, a college student; a young revolutionary; and an informant working for the government.

There are shocking secrets between the three of them; the man who turned in his fellow student, and killed him in order to hide his identity as a spy; the girl, Eun-sook, who knew nothing of the truth and builds a life with the spy; and the young revolutionary who she once loved, named Swallow. Kim, retired national security officer, finds Eun-sook’s latest story, Swallow, in a bookstore, by chance, and attends the book’s premiere. The disintegration of the relationship between the three is slowly revealed. Whose son is Ho-yeon? Will Swallow’s corpse finally be laid to rest? Can love be saved? Above all else, this is a love story.

Achievements

2022 Raindance Film Festival - Best International Feature
Released in Korea

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