Busan International Film Festival - New Currents Award

Mai Qiang is a 30-year old bachelor, withdrawn, with little in his life besides his job at an isolated signal station along the Yangtze River and his ink drawings he uses as toilet paper. Chen Qing is a hotel clerk, a widow with a young child and an undemanding relationship with her boss Lao Mo. Lao believes she has been raped, so he reports the crime to Wu Gang, the neighborhood cop. Wu investigates, but Chen is uncooperative. Lao then identifies Mai, who is detained and questioned. After Wu gets to the truth of the incident, Mai tries to break out of his loneliness and connect to Chen.

Motel Cactus consists of four episodes, all of which take place in Room 407 of Motel Cactus, a love hotel in Seoul: (1.) A girl celebrates her birthday with her boyfriend, because it is the only place she feels entirely secure with him. (2.) A student has rented room 407 for several hours to shoot a scene with a girl for his video film, a college project. (3.) A salesman meets a woman in a bar. Both very drunk, they arrive in room 407. Afterwards he is back in the room, alone. (4.) He is soon joined by his old love from his college days. Both are vaguely hoping to rekindle their old relationship.

A small town pickpocket whose friends have moved on to higher trades finds himself bitter and unable to adapt.

Kawamoto works and lives in a dilapidated pool hall which also serves as a rehearsal space for him and his friend Chikako. They seem contented to while away their hours doing nothing much at all. Meanwhile, an old pool shark meets some people from his past that he is none too happy to see again. How will this affect their private haven?

A film comprised of three interconnected vignettes that depict women at three stages of life in Iran. The first part centers on a young girl on her ninth birthday who is told that she can no longer play with the boys she had been playing with only the day before because she is now a woman. Told from the perspective of a 9-year-old girl who does not feel like or know what the word "woman" refers to, we see how devastatingly this affects both the girl and the boy with whom she had been friends. The second part is about a young woman who decides to enter a bicycle race against her husband's wishes. As first, the husband and then increasing numbers of men from her village ride beside her on horseback to convince her to return home. The race begins to symbolize a freedom that she desperately wants from the limitations that have been placed on her. Finally, the third part shows us an old woman who has come into some money and is now free to do what she wants. The way she chooses to use this freedom, however, makes one wonder just how free she is.

Three women journey to an island rumored to have healing powers.

This award winning debut film from director Park chan-ok tells the story of a young graduate student who takes a job under false pretenses in order to get close to an editor at a magazine. The editor takes advantage of his passive ways and makes him do things for him excessively. Later, the graduate student's girlfriend begins working at the same magazine and begins to get to know the editor. It's here that this story steps off the beaten path...

The story of a poor Brahmin who is forced to take alms from so-called lower castes and the impact it has on him and his family from those around him.

A grandmother is looking for her grandson, a teenager for his grandfather.

Two men ward off loneliness and boredom while guarding a mine in rural Iran.

This film is a restrained, yet thoroughly engaging, study of a female post office worker's emotional life.

Cui, a Korean woman in China with an incarcerated spouse, supports her son selling kimchi roadside until an ill-fated romance breeds disastrous repercussions.

Along a sleepy Hunan riverside, two delinquent boys experience a summer of love and violence. Ali and Xiao Yu are two teenage rebels idling away their days along the banks of a river in Jishou, a quiet town in Hunan province. They steal motorbikes, bully and rob kids, sing karaoke and get into fist fights outside the local internet bar, but their rough exterior belies a deeper romanticism, and a tenderness unfolds between them and their teenage loves. As one day bleeds into the next in this impoverished rural setting, it becomes apparent that these sun-baked days of misspent youth will be the wildest, freest time of their lives.

Ping leaves her hometown for Kuala Lumper to work with her aunt. During the counteless days of boredom, her niece shares with her conversations with a pen pal during the day, while a young man named John tries to woo her at night even though she already has a boyfriend back home. Although they already set the rules from the every beginning, her belief that love conquers all still slowly strips off all her inhibitions. With authentic and relatable characters, TAN Chui-mui's debut feature was a winner at numerous film festival. There are a thousand ways for love story to be a cliché, but this film is the one that remains true and captivating.

After the tsunami struck the coast town of Takua Pa, young architect Ton moves in town to develop a construction project and settles in a small hotel run by Na, a young sensitive local girl. They begin a secret love affair, but soon rumors spread and they meet with strong opposition from the town's residents.

A story about the relationships between the disabled man Xiangshu and a deaf-mute girl on the run from the police who takes refuge on his land.

Two boys, Li Ahh and Li Ohm, grow up motherless. Their father, Sui, is a workaholic who shuts himself out of the world. The boys' quest to reach out to their father leads them to adopt a puppy. But when the animal is sent away for being a nuisance, the boys are devastated. For the first time, Sui realizes that all his children ask is simply to love and be loved.

(Korean with English subtitles) A loner, a gypsy-like character, Jiyoung Jang, is an amateur sculptor that lives a very isolated life. Rein, a Filipina, comes to Korea to earn money. She falls in love with Ji-young and marries him but is shocked to discover that he is a transgender.

Inside a beat up stadium in Kirkuk, Iraq, live many refugees trying to escape Sadam Hussein's administration. Asu lives with his younger brother who has lost his legs from a landmine. Next door lives Hilin, who has not been able to express her feelings. One of the only sources of happiness for these people who live amid fear of poverty and bombings is soccer. Asu gathers together the Kurdish, Arabs and Turkish in order to hold a soccer match. Although they are of different races, they become close neighbors.

The main character's incessant loving and breaking up clearly illustrates the nature of a third rate poet. He is destined for predicaments, and we watch his journey. This paradox provides a true comedy hard to find nowadays.

Jeon Seungchul's citizen registration number brands him as a North Korean defector. It is difficult to find a good job and it's hard to get along with people at church. He is not an ex-convict or a migrant worker, but he is subjected to many discriminations. Like the stray dog he looks after, Jeon Seungchul is a misfit in South Korea's capitalist society.

Three best friends, Ki-tae, Dong-yoon, and Hee-june; they thought their friendship would last forever. A few tiny cracks of distrust start to develop among these best friends. Ki-tae and Hee-june are suddenly filled with misunderstanding and hated, and Ki-tae starts to use violence against Hee-june. When Dong-yoon finds out about Ki-tae's behavior toward Hee-june, he tries to stop Ki-tae but fails. Instead, what started out as little doubts, push these three boys into the point of no return.

A violent quarrel breaks out between a couple at midnight. Being at a relative,s house in the north of Iran, they depart for Tehran in the middle of the night, but they do not bring along their son. Something terrible happens on their way...

The Lopez-Aranza family are having hard times. The Villa Los Reyes Magos (The House of the Three Kings), their ancestral mansion which is the only remaining emblem of the past wealth and fame of the family, is slowly collapsing into a state of ruin. When former Congressman Gaspar goes into a coma, his opera elder sister Celia waits for a miracle through her grandson Antony clad in Sto, in "Niño" (Holy Infant Jesus) garb. But harsh reality falls on their children, Merced, Mombic, and Raquel, with the inevitable consequence: the impending sale of the mansion for a commercial venture. Celia wages her last battle to regain the glory of the past by hosting a splendid musical soiree, her final eulogy for her own moribund class.