Korean sales agent Finecut has closed several further deals on Hong Sangsoo’s Berlin title The Day She Returns, including sales to Carlotta Films in France, Atalante in Spain and Hugoeast in China. 

The film, which premiered in the Panorama section of this year’s Berlin film festival, has also been sold to the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in the UK, Cola Films in Taiwan and BKS Cinema in Finland. It was previously sold to Cinema Guild for North American distribution. 

Filmed in black-and-white with Song Seon-mi, Cho Yunhee and Park Mi-so heading the cast, the film follows a woman who has just finished the shoot of an independent film and has to give three interviews about it. When asked to reenact the interviews in her acting class, the actress finds she can’t remember them. 

Finecut is also handling international sales, excluding French-speaking Europe and Africa, Luxembourg and South Korea, on July Jung’s Dora, which is receiving its world premiere in Cannes Directors Fortnight. 

Jung’s third feature follows a girl suffering from a nervous breakdown who finally finds courage within herself during a summer filled with humiliation and contempt. Rising Korean actress Kim Doyeon (Idiot Girls And School Ghost: School Anniversary) stars as Dora with award-winning Japanese actress Ando Sakura (Monster, Shoplifters) playing an old family friend. 

Jung is the first Korean female director to have three consecutive feature films selected for Cannes following her debut A Girl At My Door, which premired in Un Certain Regard in 2014, while her sophomore work Next Sohee screened as the closing film of Cannes Critics Week in 2022. 

Finecut’s Cannes slate also includes Park Hoon-jung’s Tristes Tropiques, which won the Silver Raven Award at Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival; upcoming animated 3D feature Long Long Night; and Japanese horror thriller Wash Away.