Hommage(HKAFF 2022)

Writer-director Shin Su-won pays homage to female filmmakers who came before her in a tender, haunting ode to Korean cinema’s past and future. Middle-aged director Ji-wan (Lee Jung-eun from Parasite) is in a rut after her third film bombs at the box office. At home, she also gets no support from her husband and son. She joins a project to restore pioneering female director Hong Eun-won’s 1962 film A Woman Judge. While tracing Hong’s footsteps, Ji-wan realises that, though half a century apart, their struggles as woman directors in Korean society are eerily similar. Unfolding as a mystery-like journey of self-exploration, this elegiac drama is a bittersweet love letter to the beautiful, fading world of cinema.