Eight Years Between Films, Lee Chang-dong Brings Possible Love to the Egyptian
The Korean director will take questions at three Hollywood screenings in November as the Egyptian surveys his career.
Lee Chang-dong does not hurry, and Hollywood is making room for him. The Egyptian Theatre will run Freedom and Desire, a retrospective of the Korean director’s films, from October 26 to November 19, and Lee will be there in person for three nights of questions near the end of the run.
The series celebrates Possible Love, his first feature in eight years. It opens in select theaters on October 23 and streams only on Netflix from November 6. The film had its world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize, which Variety called the festival’s second biggest honor. South Korea has chosen it as its entry for the international feature Oscar.
Jeon Do-yeon, Sul Kyung-gu, Zo In-sung and Cho Yeo-jeong star in the 164-minute drama about two married couples, a laid-off worker and his wife and a documentary filmmaker and her husband, whose paths cross when the filmmaker sets out to film them. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film had been gestating for a decade. Lee wrote it with Oh Jung-mi and reunited with stars he has worked with before. “You could almost say that I created the characters with them,” he said.
Lee joins the audience for Q&As after Peppermint Candy on Monday, November 16, Possible Love on 35mm on Wednesday, November 18, and Secret Sunshine on Thursday, November 19. Sul has now worked with Lee six times, and Peppermint Candy was one of his first films.
The rest of the series moves through a career that began with Green Fish in 1997. Oasis won Lee the Best Director prize at Venice in 2002. Secret Sunshine brought Jeon the Best Actress award at Cannes in 2007, Poetry took Best Screenplay there in 2010, and Burning won the Cannes FIPRESCI Prize in 2018. Burning also became the first Korean film to reach the Oscar shortlist in its category.
Showtimes and tickets for the rest of the series are posted on the Egyptian’s site, and Possible Love reaches theaters three days before the retrospective begins. Velvet also covered A Jackie Chan Fan Takes the Stage, Bob Odenkirk Introduces Rumble in the Bronx at the Egyptian.
