Jero Yun's “Fighter” wins the award for best film of the 19th edition of Florence Korea Film Fest, with the story of Ji-na, a North Korean refugee in Seoul, who will redeem a life on the margins thanks to her passion for boxing. This concludes the festival dedicated to the cinema of South Korea, with the award ceremony in the hall at the La Compagnia cinema. It will be possible to continue to watch the shows of the festival until June 3 online, in streaming on the Più Compagnia and MyMovies.it platforms.
The film – selected among those competing in the “Korean Horizons” section – represents a perfect metaphor of tenacity, redemption and a spirit of adaptation. The vision invites to a reflection on current social equilibrium and on the historical relationship with North Korea, in an intimate and independent key, that of Jero Yun, director born in 1980, with over 10 films to his credit in the last decade. “Fighter” follows the life of the young North Korean refugee in South Korea awaiting the return of her father, while building a new future practicing boxing. The jury awarded the movie with the following motivation: «This film shows an authentic cinema, unfiltered, angry, human, realistic: in a word, true. Fighter, which rests entirely on the excellent interpretation of the actress Lim Sung-Mi, “shadowed” with hand-held cameras and at the centre of almost every shot, is the portrait of a woman with many battles: interpersonal, identity, family, social. (…) Jero Yun is an author whose characteristics will allow him to place his name in the history of Korean cinema».
For the “Independent Korea” section, the award goes to Park Kun-Young's “A Distant Place”. These are the words of the jury: «Visually enchanting for the almost pictorial choice in portraying bucolic landscapes and environments, the film is a Korean pastoral with a great authorial soul”.
Finally, the film that wins the Audience Award is “Recalled” crime thriller directed by Seo Yoo-min about a woman who begins to see her future after losing her memory.
The event conceived and directed by Riccardo Gelli of the Taegukgi – Toscana Korea Association, is organized with the support of the Tuscany System Foundation, the Tuscany Region, the Metropolitan City of Florence, the Municipality of Florence, the Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze Foundation, KOFIC – Korean Film Council.
