Director Yoon Dan-bi’s “Moving On” won the Uncaged Award for Best Feature Film, for which freshman and sophomore directors are eligible, at the New York Asian Film Festival on Saturday evening.

Now in its 19th year, the film festival celebrating Asian films across genres was held online from Aug. 29 to Saturday due to the spread of COVID-19. In previous years, the two-week festival had been held around June.

Several Korean films were presented at the online festival, including “Lucky Chan-sil” by Kim Cho-hee, “Baseball Girl” by Choi Yoon-tae and “Kim Ji-young, Born 1982” by Kim Do-young, among others. 

“Hello. I’m Yoon Dan-bi, director of ‘Moving On.’ I heard that I won an award at NYAFF and although I’m heartbroken that I couldn’t be there in person, I’m so grateful to have met many audience members online and that the film was well received,” said Yoon upon receiving the award at the closing ceremony streamed online. “I feel so encouraged hearing the good news and will do my best to continue sharing this film in Korea. Thank you.”

“Moving On” is about a brother and a sister staying at their grandfather’s house on summer vacation with their father, joined shortly by their aunt. The complex family relationship is shown through the eyes of Okju, the sister.

“We all unanimously loved it. This was her debut feature, she showed such masterful restraint in the film that holds really lot of quiet but power resonance. The film felt very personal to the filmmaker and also personal to those of us watching it,” said the judges of NYAFF. “It’s a movie that stays with you with so many beautiful, lived-in authentic details and experiences.”

“Moving On” is currently screening in local theaters.

By Lim Jang-won (ljw@heraldcorp.com)