I was watching Nobody’s Daughter Haewon as part of the BFI London Film Festival this year, and was rather enjoying it. I’ve done a little review of it here. It was nice to see some familiar locations in the film. And then I saw something even more familiar: one of the characters in the film was carrying a swag bag from the London Korean Film Festival 2011. I could only suppose that Hong Sang-soo picked it up when he was in London for the festival – he has been in London at least once over the past few years.
Nice to see the bag from #LKFF2011 feature so prominently in Nobody's Daughter Haewon @koreanfilmfest @KCCUK Hong must have fond memories
— London Korean Links (@lklinks) October 15, 2013
But then I had second thoughts. Hong Sang-soo came to London in 2010, for a retrospective of his films at the BFI in September. But I didn’t remember him being at the 2010 London Korean Film Festival in November that year. And I didn’t remember any Hong Sang-soo being screened in the 2011 festival either. So how did Hong get a 2011 goody bag?
One of life’s little puzzles. But it’s a puzzle that inspired Adam Hartzell, a stalwart of koreanfilm.org and Hong Sang-soo admirer, to record an intriguing podcast which also weaves in Martin Scorsese, Kyung-hyun Kim and the Japanese I-Novels of Oe Kenzaburo.
Follow Adam on Twitter @FilmEssaying. His Hong Sang-soo Podcast channel can be found on Soundcloud HSSSPodcast.