The 54th San Sebastian International Film Festival, held annually in northern Spain,will host the World Premier of director Lim Sang-soo's latest offering, "The Old Garden". The festival, which runs September 21 30, 2006, invited the film to its Official Selection section where it will compete for the prestigious Golden Shell award along side 15 other films from directors such as John Boorman, Bahman Ghobadi, Agnieszka Holland, Marion Hnsel, Nick Broomfield and Hirokazu Kore-eda.
Director Lim is highly appreciated on the international festival circuit, with previous films "The President's Last Bang" (2005) invited to Cannes, Toronto, New York and Melbourne film festivals, and "A Good Lawyer's Wife" (2003) in competition at the Venice International Film Festival.
The Old Garden, Lim's fifth feature, is set during the turbulent '80's when South Korea's military dictatorship used violent means to suppress student rebellions, particularly in the south. Adapted from a best-selling novel by Hwang Suk-young, the hero of the story leaves his girlfriend to join a student activist group, only to be arrested almost immediately, judged at a farcical trial and condemned to life imprisonment. While the political events, including those dealing with the Gwangju Massacre, are an important part of the tale, they take second place to the love story and the point of view of a woman abandoned by her boyfriend.
Director Lim was born in 1962 in Seoul and studied Sociology at Yonsei University. He went on to study film at the Korean Academy of Film Arts and in the same year worked as assistant director for Park Jong-won's Kuro Arirang (1989). He made his feature debut as writer-director of "Girl's Night Out" (1998). His next project, A Good Woman in Paris, pending financing, will be shot entirely outside of Korea. A domestic release date for "The Old Garden" has not yet been announced, but expect to see it in theaters by mid-October.
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