Virginia Film Festival

Hong Sangsoo’s The Woman Who Ran, which earned him the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 70th Berlinale, finds the celebrated Korean auteur using his characteristic humor and grace in mining universal realities from everyday interactions. Hong’s 24th feature follows Gamhee (Kim Minhee), who visits two close friends at their homes, then has a chance encounter with a third at an arthouse movie theater. The chats, though often breezy, find currents floating above and below the surface. Each is presented with slight repetitions and variations, with the most important of these being unwelcome interactions by interrupting, irate males. Together they create an interconnecting web of philosophies and coincidences that combine to offer a subtle and powerful look at dramas large and small faced by women everywhere while allowing the prolific filmmaker to illustrate that an infinite number of worlds are possible.

The Woman Who Ran is part of the Korean Film Series supported by the Korean Cultural Center and UVA Korea Society