July Jung’s scathing examination of workplace ethics received a 7-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival, and is highlighted by fierce performances from Kim Si-eun and Bae Doona.
Sohee (Kim Si-eun) dreams of being a dancer, but her reality is firmly grounded in her need to find a job and train for a career in a very competitive market. When her job training program finds her a position at a call center, Sohee thinks maybe her luck has changed for the better.
This wide-eyed, intelligent teenager should be moving up in life, but as the unbearable cruelty and diminishment of the work comes to light, Sohee’s hope–and mental wellbeing–fade. Enter detective Yujin (Bae Doona) whose investigation reveals a system so perverse she feels almost powerless to stop it. Director July Jung's tense thriller astounded audiences at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. “Amid such a bleak and slow burn of a premise, Jung’s Next Sohee is surprisingly warm-hearted.” –Manuel Betancourt, Variety
Director Biography
July Jung is a Korean filmmaker who directed numerous short films before her auspicious debut at the Un Certain Regard at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival for her debut feature, A Girl at My Door (2014). Next Sohee is her second feature and was the closing film of the Critics' Week at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.