Written

Colour, HD CAM
South Korea, 2007, 87 min
IP – International premiere
Section: Forum of Independents

Synopsis

Critics often write about the viewer’s experience of a film, where the actor enables him to “get inside a character”. But is this real empathy or is the relationship the audience has with fictional characters more akin to subjugation or sadistic manipulation? These and other issues are examined in this self-reflexive South Korean film conceived as a complex meditation on the identity of the character in a fictional story. Man A wakes up to find he has an injury, he’s in a bath in a strange place, from where he is directed to another place against his will. He then encounters the alter ego of his creator, the actor who plays him, who enters the story as a parasite, and he meets other characters along the way whose own goals are also unrelated to the prescribed screenplay. The film was made in a small studio which, itself, becomes a set inside the film; it reflects upon all levels of the filmmaking process, from the script and actual shooting, to the given film style and the “eye” of the camera.

About the director

Kim Byung-woo (b. 1980, South Korea) completed his studies this February at the theatre and film department of Seoul’s Hanyang University, yet he already has two feature films to his name. His debut Anamorphic was screened in 2003 in the main section of the PiFan International Fantastic Film Festival. Kim’s latest film, Written (2007), was premiered in the Vision section at the 12th International Film Festival in Pusan.