Director Lee Chang-dong Wins Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at 83rd Venice Film Festival for 'Possible Love'

Director Lee Chang-dong has won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival for his film Possible Love.

The award is the festival's second highest honor and marks the first time a Korean film has won the Grand Jury Prize. Previously, Kim Ki-duk's Pieta won the festival's top honor, the Golden Lion, in 2012. Lee also won Best Director at Venice for Oasis in 2002, while Moon So-ri received the Marcello Mastroianni Award for her performance in the film.

During the awards ceremony, Lee explained that he made Possible Love to question what cinema can and should do in an era where labor is disappearing and human connections are increasingly being severed. 

He thanked the festival and jury, as well as his younger brother and producer Lee Jun-dong and his family. Lee also credited the film's four lead actors—Jeon Do-yeon, Sul Kyung-gu, Jo In-sung, and Cho Yeo-jeong—saying that the award belonged to them. 

At the post-ceremony press conference, Lee humorously revealed that Cho Yeo-jeong had told him about a particularly lucky dream she had, prompting him to "buy" the dream for her—a Korean custom associated with sharing good fortune. He joked that it may have helped bring him luck at the festival. 

Lee also discussed the challenges facing modern cinema, including the increasing difficulty of brining audiences together in theaters and filmmakers' concerns over how to portray the suffering of others. 

Possible Love is Lee's seventh feature film and his first since Burning in 2018. Co-written with Oh Jung-mi, the film follows a dismissed worker couple, played by Jeon Do-yeon and Sul Kyung-gu, whose lives intersect with a documentary filmmaker and producer couple played by Cho Yeo-jeong and Jo In-sung. 

The film also received the FIPRESCI Prize from the International Federation of Film Critics. 

Netizen Reactions

Among the sampled comments from readers, reactions were largely celebratory regarding the historic win, while some users expressed frustration over the financial difficulties facing art-house cinema or criticized early media reports predicting the top prize.

1. Between Parasite and this, Cho Yeo-jeong really seems to have great luck with international film festivals!

2. Wow~ Congratulations 👏👏👏

3. Nice, huge congratulations to actress Cho Yeo-jeong!

4. I'm so curious what kind of dream it was lol

5. Secret Sunshine and Poetry are still my all-time favorite movies. Just like he said, films that leave you with questions…

6. While reading the article, I found out that people sometimes give standing ovation for a full 24 minutes. That's fascinating lol

7. The reality is that even someone on Lee Chang-dong's level, who wins awards at international film festivals and receives critical acclaim, still struggles to secure investment because his films aren't expected to perform well at the box office.

8. Cho Yeo-jeong just has a really auspicious face/physiognomy.

9. Those trash reporters flooded us with articles saying the Golden Lion was practically guaranteed, and now they've gone completely quiet lol Seriously, jumping the gun like that deserves a grand prize of its own.

10. Several outlets said Lee Chang-dong winning the Grand Jury Prize and Jeon Do-yeon winning Best Actress were basically locks...but as always, you never really know until the results are announced. 

Source: Nate News