FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 5, 2024

CINEMA GUILD ACQUIRES HONG SANGSOO’S LOCARNO COMPETITION ENTRY BY THE STREAM

NEW YORK, NY (Aug 5, 2024) – Cinema Guild announced today the acquisition of North American distribution rights for By the Stream, directed by Hong Sangsoo. The film will premiere next week in the international competition at the Locarno Film Festival with additional prestigious festival premieres to be announced soon. Cinema Guild will release the film in theaters next year.

In the wake of a scandal involving several of her students, Jeonim (Kim Minhee), an artist and lecturer at a women's university, asks her uncle Chu Sieon (Kwon Haehyo) to step in and direct a short play for the skit festival put on by her department. Her uncle is an actor-director, recently blacklisted after a scandal of his own. He decides to direct the short play because of a similar experience directing a play at the same university 40 years earlier. It doesn't take long before Sieon develops feelings for Jeonim's colleague, Professor Jeong (Cho Yunhee), a textile professor. Meanwhile, the circumstances surrounding the scandal grow more complicated, the moon waxes in the sky each night, and every morning Jeonim goes to the stream and sketches to grasp its patterns.

For his 32nd feature film, Hong Sangsoo returns to the campus setting of films like Oki’s Movie (2010) and Our Sunhi (2013) and revisits thematic concerns and modes of expression he hasn't touched on in his cinema for some time.

"By the Stream is Hong’s longest film in years," said Cinema Guild President Peter Kelly, "But he packs so much into two hours—the colors, the compositions, the pileup of narrative possibilities—that we didn’t want it to end."

In addition to By the Stream, Cinema Guild also announced the acquisition of two earlier films from Hong Sangsoo, Right Now, Wrong Then (2015) and In Another Country (2012). All deals were negotiated by Peter Kelly of Cinema Guild with Youngjoo Suh of Finecut.

Cinema Guild now holds rights to 24 of Hong Sangsoo’s 32 films and all but one of the films he’s made since 2008.

A premier distributor of world cinema, independent films and documentaries, Cinema Guild’s upcoming releases include Kazik Radwanski’s Matt and Mara and Matías Piñeiro’s You Burn Me. Recent releases include the 4K restoration of Shinji Somai’s Moving, Music by Angela Schanelec and Hong’s In Our Day.

For press inquiries, please contact us at:

(212) 685-6242 or press at cinemaguild dot com

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