Film Under the Pines: Buddhist Film Festival Brings Cinema to Gangneung Forest

A special film festival is coming to the Geumgangsong pine forest in Gangneung, Gangwon Province, where visitors can pitch a tent and watch a movie under the trees.

The 6th Segyeilhwa International Buddhist Film Festival will host its "Geumgangsong Pine Forest Camping & Cinema" event at Hyeondeoksa Temple in Gangneung on Saturday.

Nestled inland from the Jumunjin coast, Hyeondeoksa is a Buddhist temple surrounded by a forest of Geumgangsong pines — a prized variety of Korean red pine. The temple is known for its refined temple cuisine and coffee brewed personally by the head monk, offering visitors a tranquil mountain sanctuary experience.

The film "A Lonely Island in the Distant Sea" will be screened at 7 p.m. Saturday in the temple's gravel courtyard. Directed by Kim Mi-young, the 2023 film follows Yun Cheol, once a promising sculptor, who reinvents himself as an interior contractor in a small provincial town after divorcing his wife. His daughter Jina, branded a troubled child for scrawling strange drawings everywhere, abandons her plans to study fine arts and abruptly announces she will enter monastic life. Yun Cheol, meanwhile, meets a woman named Yeongji and falls into an unexpected love. The film weaves together the choices and encounters at life's crossroads against a backdrop of breathtaking scenery. It won the screenplay award at the 2024 Buil Film Awards.

The festival will also offer a temple stay program at Hyeondeoksa and a pine forest camping experience. Six family camping groups and eight solo campers will be invited, and day-visit tickets are available for those who wish to attend only the screening without staying overnight.

"We wanted to make the entire day a single program — staying at Hyeondeoksa, sharing a meal, drinking coffee, resting in the pine forest, and watching a film as the sun goes down — rather than just a screening you attend and leave," a festival official said. "We hope it offers a new kind of travel experience, stepping one pace deeper into Gangneung beyond the seaside city most people know, to discover the pine forest and a mountain temple at night."