Cinema Guild Acquires Hong Sangsoo’s Berlin Silver Bear Winner ‘The Novelist’s Film’

Cinema Guild has acquired U.S. rights to The Novelist’s Film, the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize winner from Korean writer-director Hong Sangsoo, which recently made its world premiere at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival. The film is the third Silver Bear winner in as many years from Hong—who won Best Director for The Woman Who Ran in 2020 and Best Screenplay for Introduction in 2021—and will be the 11th of the director’s works released by Cinema Guild in the last seven years.

In The Novelist’s Film, Lee Hyeyoung (Hong’s In Front of Your Face) plays Junhee, a novelist who has grown disenchanted with her writing. On a trip to see an old friend, she runs into a film director who was set to adapt one of her novels before the project fell through. One chance encounter leads to another and soon she finds herself having lunch with Kilsoo (Kim Minhee), a well-known actress also questioning her role as an artist.

It’s then that Junhee has an epiphany: she will make a film starring Kilsoo, and it won’t be like other films. It will be the novelist’s film.

“For anyone who thinks they’ve seen everything that Hong Sangsoo can do,” said Cinema Guild President Peter Kelly, “The Novelist’s Film proves once again that there is no end to the surprises and delights this director has in store for audiences.”

Other upcoming releases from Cinema Guild include Fern Silva’s Rock Bottom Riser and Ramon and Silvan Zürcher’s The Girl and the Spider. Recent releases include Payal Kapadia’s A Night of Knowing Nothing, Ernst Karel and Veronika Kusumaryati’s Expedition Content and Hong’s Introduction.

Cinema Guild’s Peter Kelly negotiated the deal for Hong’s 27th feature with Youngjoo Suh of Finecut.