Films 2009

Café noir

by Jung Sung-il / South Korea 2009 / 197' / in competition

Cast and credits

Original title / Café Noir

English title / Café Noir

Director / Jung Sung-il

Screenplay / Jung Sung-il

Cinematography / Kim Jun-young

Editing / Natalie Cristiani

Music / Lee Ji-yeon

Sound / Lee Seung-chul

Art direction / Jo Sang-Gyeong

Cast / Shin Ha-gyun, Kim Hye-na, Jung Yu-mi

Production company / Polaris production

Format / HD, col. e b/n

Runtime / 197’

Synopsis

On Christmas Eve in Seoul, a young teacher is left by his lover. Cruising through the city with a gift that the young daughter of the woman gave him, he meets one of his colleague who teaches in the school attended by the girl, and then he enters a bookshop, drinks a coffee while sitting beside an unknown woman. In the second part of the movie, the same man accepts to listen the love troubles of a girl met by chance, promising not to fall in love with her, but just accompany her and love her brotherly. But, after four nights of enchanting intimacy along the river and in the cafés of the city unexpectedly her lover returns.

The director

Jung Sung-il was born in Seoul in 1959. A well-known film critics, between 1989 and 1999 was the editor in chief of two main specialized review in Korea, Road Show and Kino. He co-ordinated the workshop with Jia Zhangke at the Korean Film Academy in 2000 and in 2007 and with Hou Hsiao-hsien at the Pusan International Film Festival in 2005, and the Seoul Film Collection in 2006.