Actors make US debut in drama about immigrant experience
"Bedford Park," a romance starring Korean actors Son Suk-ku and Moon Choi, won the US Dramatic Special Jury Award for a Debut Feature at the Sundance Film Festival on Friday.
The jury award for a first-time feature director was presented during the festival's closing ceremony in Park City, Utah, where the film had its world premiere last week.
In presenting the prize to Korean American filmmaker Stephanie Ahn, jurors said the film "upended all of our assumptions of a story told with depth and skill" by "inviting us into a world we've never seen depicted on film."
"Bedford Park" follows Audrey (Choi), a Korean American woman in her 30s haunted by childhood abuse, who returns to her parents' home in New Jersey after her mother is injured in a car accident. There she meets Eli, the man responsible for the crash (Son). The two forge a romantic connection as they work through shared histories as the children of immigrants.
Moon Choi, known locally as Choi Hee-seo, has worked across film and television in titles like "Dongju: The Portrait of a Poet," "Mistress" and "Now, We Are Breaking Up."
Her breakout came with "Anarchist From Colony," a 2017 film set during the Japanese occupation of Korea, in which she played real-life Japanese anarchist Fumiko Kaneko in fluent Japanese. The role earned her dual wins for best actress and best new actress at the Grand Bell Awards.
Son has emerged as a fan favorite in recent years through TV dramas including "My Liberation Notes" and "D.P.," as well as 2022 action thriller "The Roundup," which sold 12 million tickets domestically.
The two have previously worked together in Korean productions "Unframed" and "Night Fishing." "Bedford Park" is the first US production for both.
Widely regarded as the largest showcase for independent American cinema, Sundance has long served as a launchpad for voices working outside the studio system.
Past titles at the festival from Korean filmmakers or starring Korean actors include Celine Song's "Past Lives" in 2023 and Lee Isaac Chung's "Minari" in 2020, which went on to earn six Oscar nominations the following year.
Like "Bedford Park," many of these films have centered on the Korean American immigrant experience, exploring questions of identity, generational tension and the push and pull of two cultures. A notable exception was O Muel's "Jiseul," a historical drama about the 1948 Jeju Uprising that left some 15,000 dead, which won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize in 2013.
Sony Pictures Classics has acquired worldwide distribution rights to "Bedford Park," according to Variety. A release date has yet to be announced.
moonkihoon@heraldcorp.com
