Seoul Short Film Festival (3)
Countless judges, along with the actors and directors who had come for the awards ceremony, were watching Stalker.
Oh. Even Master Kang Hui-ok showed up.
Ryu Mi-so, Kim Jae-jun, and Gil Ara — who's been rising like crazy lately — plus Master Kang Hui-ok on top of that…
Director Bong really went for the throat this time.
And they were all thinking something else, too.
Gil Ara…. Her romance chops are solid as well.
No matter how much you peel her back, something new keeps coming out. Then again, she's still just a first-year rookie.
The judges were all heavyweight directors, every last one of them. Looking at Gil Ara, they could all predict the same thing.
This is as low as her stock is ever going to get.
She's young, and she's already this good.
I should consider her for my next project.
And then there was one director whose thoughts ran a little differently.
Every film that came before this just became a warm-up act.
Takashi watched Stalker and thought.
The chemistry between the actors. The way they handled their gazes toward the camera. And the director's staging and cinematography on top of it all…
This level of quality… from a short film?
What he focused on most of all were the actors.
The performances of the cast are on a completely different plane from everyone who came before them.
The story itself was ordinary enough. They were only about halfway through, but it was a romance film that grafted the distinctive Korean culture of ancestral spirits onto the love between its characters.
But ordinary didn't mean uninteresting. No — if anything, everything mentioned above amplified the immersion and maximized the film's entertainment value.
Remarkable. At this rate, this film takes the Grand Prize.
Takashi's honest assessment continued. Even so, he felt one lingering regret. And that regret was about the shaman girl — about Gil Ara.
Her looks are striking, her acting is excellent. She's unusual, but she has a real character presence. She'd definitely play well in Japan, too.
Frankly speaking, if she could just speak fluent Japanese, he was confident enough to say she would succeed for certain.
But her color is too strong.
That was why he felt the regret. He sensed a clear ceiling in her.
Actors had roles and genres that fit them like a glove. No matter how good the direction, the makeup, or even the performance itself, an actor's own color inevitably bled through.
She found the role that suits her far too early.
He had wanted to see a wider range of acting from her, but he judged that it would probably be difficult.
I should just focus on judging.
Having finished his analysis of Ara, Takashi returned to scoring Stalker.
The film pressed on.
Cheon Eun-bin began burning her own body to save the one she loved.
Brutal.
The judges set down the pens they had been scribbling with and simply watched Cheon Eun-bin.
The emptiness of forgetting, and the emptiness of losing. The same emptiness — and yet the feeling that reached the audience was a gulf wider than heaven and earth.
Someone suddenly recalled the phrase. Forgetting is a blessing of the gods. An old piece of Nietzschean philosophy. What the director seemed to want to say through the film. The emptiness of a hollow that kept growing larger — that was exactly this.
For Cheon Eun-bin, memory was a curse from the gods. Because she tried so hard to act as if nothing was wrong, the aftertaste was all the more bitter. In the end, every emotion she had pressed down and packed away burst open by pure chance.
……
……
……
Alone, Cheon Eun-bin wept with raw, desperate grief. She who still longed for life poured out a voice of pure yearning — but no miracle came.
Cheon Eun-bin (天恩彬).
The end of one who had turned her back on heaven's love.
The final remaining faces of those she had loved flickered into view. The well had long since run dry — and yet the traces of water still remained.
Stalker
"All screenings have concluded. In one hour, the awards ceremony will proceed based on the combined scores of the judges and the audience. All participants, please return to your seats on time."
The MC finished speaking, but almost no one actually got up from their seats.
Hmm. What's this? I really need to pee. Can I go? Ah, whatever.
Bodily needs were important business. Ara stood up alone from her seat, and every eye in the room locked onto her.
Gil Ara.
And they projected the Cheon Eun-bin they had just watched onto her. A few people bowed their heads again and broke into tears.
At that moment, every finalist at the Seoul Short Film Festival was sending silent, unspoken thanks to the organizers.
What if Stalker had screened before our film?
They all imagined the nightmare and shuddered.
The Grand Prize is locked in.
There's nothing we can do about this.
They all resigned themselves.
Let's aim for second.
Second place is still doable.
Stalker was like a natural disaster. They had no choice but to lower their sights. And still, they looked at Gil Ara again.
What kind of acting is that, and she's younger than me.
Her asking price is about to go up.
Will I ever get to work with her someday?
The actors in attendance each took their own measure of Ara.
This reminds me of when Director Bong Jun-seo first appeared on the film scene.
Director Bong. He's going to shine again.
Bong Jun-seo just pulled off one hell of a stunt.
Though the forty-minute limit does force the character arcs and story to move a bit too urgently — that's a shame.
A formidable rival has been resurrected.
Those serving as judges welcomed Bong Jun-seo's comeback even as they eyed him warily. But every one of them also felt genuine gratitude toward Bong Jun-seo and the cast of Stalker.
A short film festival. The kind of event that always came with mutterings in its wake. Their own little league. The world had never paid much attention to short films — but this time, that perception had shifted.
Everyone here had made a short film themselves, so they knew perfectly well how absurd this whole situation was. And for people who worked in the film industry, a boom in the business was naturally a green light. So how could they not be grateful?
Of course, the real public reaction would only become clear once the finalist shorts were released on OTT platforms and shown to regular audiences — but it was green light enough that one could say so with confidence.
They said it drops this evening, right?
Looking forward to the reactions.
Each of them scored the films while indulging in pleasant daydreams.
I'm a little envious of Korea…
The moment the awards ceremony ended, articles began flooding in one after another.
And amid all that anticipation, nine o'clock finally arrived.
Nine PM sharp. People flooded onto Netflix.
Whether it was because everyone had piled on at once, the short films still hadn't been uploaded — but only for a moment.
9:02 PM. At last, the finalist films began uploading.
Stalker (Seoul Short Film Festival Grand Prize)
Jeong Yeo-un confirmed it in real time as well.
"What is this. With the title laid out like that…. It looks like someone's stalking a person named Seoul Short Film Festival."
Originally, Jeong Yeo-un had planned to go to the Gigi Box Art Hall and watch it in person. Of course he would — it was a film festival his own company's people were competing in. How could he not go? He had even told Ara he was coming to see it himself.
But the sudden, overwhelming box-office frenzy had kept him away in the end, and only now was he finally getting to watch it. Confirming the title, Jeong Yeo-un marveled at Netflix's sense of humor and hit play.
The next day.
Ara was checking her phone messenger.
"Heh heh heh."
Freshly awake, Ara let out a faintly sinister little laugh and replied to each message with perfect politeness.
Click—
Then she fired up her computer right away.
"Alright~ time to check the public reaction?"
Even to Ara's own eyes, Cheon Eun-bin had been an unbearably pitiful character. And she had poured an outrageous performance into that role using her Special Privilege cheat skill. There was one thing she was looking forward to.
"I can finally shake off that damn Gwang-nyeon-i title."
Sniff—
She was getting teary. A nasty nickname earned from landing a bizarre role in her very first project. She had just played a character that more than canceled that role out — so surely public perception had shifted by now.
"This is why you have to land the right character. Am I right?"
Talking to empty air, Ara opened the internet. And the first place she went, naturally, was her own fan café.
Giljabi
"You guys are on my side, right?"
It was a choice designed to minimize any potential emotional damage. She clicked into the free board and sorted by most recommended. And then she saw the top post.
"?"
"?????"
The title of the post sitting on an overwhelming number of recommendations looked… a little off, to Ara's eyes.
"Wh-what is this?"
For a second she nearly blacked out from sheer absurdity. Barely holding onto her sanity, Ara clicked into the post.
"Fight about what, you lunatics?"
And why would they fight? Ara's questions didn't particularly matter. That place was already a battlefield.
"What's not easy? Have these people actually lost it? Did I accidentally walk into the wrong place……?"
She double-checked just in case she had wandered somewhere she shouldn't have — but no, it was definitely her own fan café. To figure out what on earth was going on, Ara started reading through the comments in order.
"Hmm…."
Ara pondered. This was, how to put it. This was exactly what a toxic community looked like, wasn't it? The problem was that the toxic community in question was her own fan café.
Ara hit the back button and posted something on the free board.
"Ah crap. How did they know."
[This post has been deleted.]
Spooked, Ara frantically deleted the post she had just put up.
"Hmm. I should stay away from here for a while."
Ara left the fan café and went looking for news articles.
"Th-that's right! This is more like it!"
Ara was healing herself with the articles. And then she found one more.
"Uh, uh?"
No. No no no. Ara hurriedly clicked into the article.
Ara imagined it. What if Forest of Crime succeeded in Japan, too? She pictured Japanese people calling out to her, saying she was the best.
Saikou~!!!
Ara-chan!! Saikou!!!!!
It was as if the word "psycho" was ringing out from every direction.
"Haa…."