Lee Chang-dong came back to Venice with a seven-minute ovation
Published on HivePostify by @vixmemon · Mon Sep 07 2026
Sala Grande holds a little over a thousand people. On Sunday they stood for seven minutes after Possible Love, Lee Chang-dong's first film since Burning in 2018. Sul Kyung-gu and Zo In-sung were crying in the row. It has been 24 years since Lee took the Silver Lion for Oasis. This time he is in the Golden Lion race, and Korea has already named the film its Oscar submission.
The plot is two couples and a camera. Sul and Jeon Do-yeon are Ho-seok and Mi-ok, a laid-off factory worker and his wife after a violent crackdown on strikers. Zo In-sung and Cho Yeo-jeong are Sang-woo and Ye-ji, moneyed, with Ye-ji directing the documentary that puts the four in the same rooms. Lee said he sat on the labor story for years because it felt too raw, then the pandemic and the later protests pulled it back. He also said Ye-ji, the one worrying about how to film other people's pain, is the closest to him.
That is the part I trust more than the Rotten Tomatoes 100. A 72-year-old director asking whether movies can still connect anyone, then building a film about a filmmaker who is not sure she should be in the frame. Jung Jae-il wrote the score and Lee kept it thin on purpose. He thinks music often shoves feeling in from outside.
Netflix paid for it and owns the international rights. Korea gets a theatrical date on 23 September. The US Oscar-qualifying run is 23 October. The rest of the world gets it on the app on 6 November. McDonagh's Wild Horse Nine already had a 14-minute ovation earlier in the week, so the room on the Lido is loud this year. Awards are 12 September. I would not bet a house on a Lion. I would watch this before it disappears into the November scroll.
Sources: [Korea Times on the premiere](https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/entertainment/films/20260907/can-possible-love-win-lee-chang-dong-top-prize-at-venice-film-festival). MK on the actors in the aisle: [Sul Kyung-gu in tears](https://www.mk.co.kr/en/hot-issues/12146327).
Tags: #venice#film#korea#leechangdong#netflix