[News Culture] The Jecheon International Music & Film Festival is stepping beyond the traditional boundaries of music cinema while holding on to the identity that has defined it for more than two decades.
The festival, led by executive chairman Jang Hang-jun, has announced seven films for the International Competition, a new section making its debut at the 22nd edition.
The section is not confined to films about music. Instead, it spotlights feature films that bring strong filmmaking and fresh perspectives to the world around us. This year’s selections take on censorship, artistic freedom, social prejudice, war, loss and the changing meaning of family.
Ali Asgari’s Divine Comedy, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, approaches censorship and creative freedom with an unexpectedly playful touch. What begins as an artist’s struggle against restrictions soon unfolds into a sharply observed comedy of bureaucratic absurdity.
Sophie Heldman’s The Education of Jane Cumming revisits a real-life scandal that unsettled 19th-century Scotland. Selected for the Panorama section of the Berlin International Film Festival, the film follows women who refuse to accept the taboos and prejudices imposed on them.
Fernando Eimbcke’s Moscas, which screened in competition at Berlin, begins with a small disruption in an otherwise carefully controlled life. From that crack, the film opens up questions about intimacy, community and families formed outside conventional structures.
Mohamed Al-Daradji’s Irkalla: Gilgamesh’s Dream draws on Iraqi mythology to tell a story shaped by war. First unveiled at the Locarno Film Festival, it follows children carrying the weight of loss while still reaching for a future beyond the violence surrounding them.
Abdellatif Kechiche, the Palme d’Or-winning director of Blue Is the Warmest Color, returns with Mektoub, My Love: Canto Due. The new film will bring the director back before Korean audiences with another deeply immersive portrait of youth, desire and fleeting summer encounters.
Ira Sachs’ Peter Hujar’s Day arrives after its Sundance premiere, led by Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall. Built around an extended conversation, the film captures a day in the life of New York photographer Peter Hujar through two tightly controlled, quietly absorbing performances.
The only Korean film in the lineup is Body and Mind, which will receive its world premiere at JIMFF. Director Chan-Woo Jeon traces grief, mourning and the slow process of rebuilding a life, shaping those emotions into a visually distinctive and deeply personal work.
The 22nd Jecheon International Music & Film Festival will take place across Jecheon, North Chungcheong Province, from September 3 to 8.
Reported by News Culture M.J._mj94070777@nc.press
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