In Front of Your Face

a film by Hong Sangsoo
2021, 85 minutes

Poster

Synopsis

After years living abroad, former actress Sangok (Lee Hyeyoung) is back in Seoul, staying with her sister Jeongok (Cho Yunhee) in her high-rise apartment. The siblings sleep late, have breakfast in a cafe and visit a restaurant owned by Jeongok's son. But as the details of Sangok's day accrue (a spill on her blouse, an encounter at her childhood home), it becomes clear that there is much she is not revealing. And these mysterious circumstances have something to do with her decision to meet with film director Jaewon (Kwon Haehyo) to discuss her return to acting.

In her first role for Hong, Lee, a prominent theater and screen actress in South Korea, makes a captivating return to the big screen. With In Front of Your Face, Hong suggests that perhaps the most important things in this life are also the most immediate.

Reviews

"Intimate and fluid… [a] serenely passionate deployment of art as resistance to mortality."
-Richard Brody, The New Yorker

"Hong’s gift resides in part in his ability to inform potentially tedious tangents with a rapturous and seemingly effortlessly achieved intensity."
-Chuck Bowen, Slant

"One of the very best films from one of the very best filmmakers working today."
-Joshua Brunsting, Criterion Cast

"Like a short story, In Front of Your Face makes a lot out of very little. It is a masterclass in economical filmmaking (there are approximately six locations used throughout the film), and a reminder that Hong is not only among the best filmmakers working today, but also simply one of cinema’s greatest storytellers, who can consistently sum up our absurd and incredible human experience in less than 90 minutes."
- K.F. Watanabe, Screen Slate

"One of Hong’s most moving films… a love letter to Seoul and a superb character study of the beatific presence of mind and body with which one woman faces death… tinged with the beauty and sadness of transience."
- Becca Voelcker, Sight and Sound

Press Materials

High-Res Stills and Press Kit
Press Release

Where to watch

Opens May 6

Playdates

May 6 - Film at Lincoln Center - New York, NY
May 6-9 - Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival - Minneapolis, MN
May 13-22 - American Cinematheque - Los Angeles, CA
May 13 - Laemmle Monica Film Center - Los Angeles, CA
May 13 - Digital Gym Cinema - San Diego, CA
May 13 - The Clairidge - Montclair, NJ
May 13 - Cinema Public - Montreal, QC
May 16-22 - The Cinematheque - Vancouver, BC
May 20 - TIFF Bell Lightbox - Toronto, ON
May 20 - Center for Contemporary Arts - Santa Fe, NM
May 21-22 - Detroit Institute of Arts - Detroit, MI
May 21-22 - Oklahoma City Museum of Art - Oklahoma City, OK
May 27 - FilmScene - Iowa City, IA

June 4 - Desert Film Society - Rancho Mirage, CA
June 5-7 - Belcourt Theatre - Nashville, TN
June 6 - Lightbox Film Center - Philadelphia, PA
June 19 - National Museum of Asian Art - Washington, DC
June 24 - Gene Siskel Film Center - Chicago, IL

July 8-17 - Northwest Film Forum - Seattle, WA

Aug 19-21 - Museum of Fine Arts, Houston - Houston, TX