APM - Asian Project Market

2023 Project

Logline

On a small island, Jin, a teenage girl going through puberty, begins her first love affair with her best friend.

Synopsis

Jin, a seventeen-year-old girl, lives on a small, remote island far from the mainland. She and Dujae, also a seventeen-year-old boy, grew up together like brother and sister, going to the same school, which serves as an elementary, middle, and high school.
Their lives seem monotonous, yet they start to develop unfamiliar feelings for each other. Their feelings gradually grow, and they hope that the other feels the same way but are too embarrassed to express themselves. The tension builds between them.
One day, her homeroom teacher, Dongsik, suggests that Jin compete in a 200-meter running race at an athletic competition taking place on the mainland. Dujae also volunteers, as a male competitor, confidently boasting about his speed.
Jin and Dujae find it hard to control their impulses in a place where everything is different from their lives on the island. They realize their feelings for each other during an awkward conversation. Fully giving in to their emotions, Jin and Dujae make love for the first time.
On returning to the island, where nothing at all has changed, their relationship reverts to the way it was before—like brother and sister.
As the seasons change, everything seems strange and new.

Director's Statement

First Step is a story about first love, and a time that can never come again. It depicts a character who realizes, only when it is gone, that what she has been feeling, always hesitantly, is, in fact, love.
It draws on those moments, with which everyone can relate, of first love at a time of immaturity, both physically and mentally; of not knowing what to do.
Through this film, the audience will witness the growing pains of two juveniles as they embark on their first love, amid the wild and primal environment of the island.

Producer's Statement

The writer aims to provide an opportunity for people to recall those moments of growth, with which everyone is familiar; has experienced but forgotten; through a girl who thoroughly embraces her feelings of love, on an island of pristine natural beauty and surrounded by the blue sea.

Director's Profile

Producer's Profile