Lee Chang-dong says Silver Lion 'is enough,' questions how film can share others' pain

"Films sometimes take the stories of others' suffering — of people in pain — and consume them for the sake of the film itself. I kept asking myself how filmmakers should capture that suffering, and I wanted to share that question with audiences."

Those were the words of director Lee Chang-dong, who won the Grand Jury Prize — the Silver Lion — at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival for "Possible Love," speaking at a post-ceremony press conference on Saturday (local time) on Lido island in Venice, Italy.

Lee said the stories in "Possible Love" grew out of a mass layoff by a large conglomerate that took place in South Korea about a decade ago. "There was a great social shock as workers went on strike and were forcibly suppressed," he said. "I was deeply shaken by it myself."

The film evokes the 2009 mass dismissal of KGM workers, though Lee had asked at a production press event in South Korea on Aug. 25 that audiences "not receive it as the story of any specific company."

Lee also described how he had once tried, more than a decade ago, to make a narrative film about laid-off workers — only to abandon the project.

"I could not be certain I had the right to tell their story as a film," he said. After many years had passed, he found a new way in: a story about a documentary filmmaker — the character Yeji — who sets out to film those same laid-off workers. "I thought a great deal about how, as a filmmaker, I could put another person's pain on screen," he said.

He added that the act of making the film itself might become "a process of sharing that pain together and finding a way to heal each other's wounds."

Lee said he received the Grand Jury Prize as an encouragement to keep wrestling with the relationship between film and its audience.

"I think we are in an era when filmmakers are being pushed to think more deeply about what cinema is," he said. "When it is becoming harder for people to gather in theaters, and the connections we once shared through film are being severed, I cannot help but ask what kind of films I should be making."

"I want to meet audiences more deeply going forward, and I hope my questions and their thoughts can find each other," he said. "I believe this award is one that encourages exactly that."

He also shared a lighthearted anecdote about buying a "good dream" from lead actor Jo Yeo-jeong before the ceremony.

"Jo Yeo-jeong said she had a good dream and sold it to me — there is a custom like that in Korea," he said. "I think that dream is what brought this good fortune."

In a separate interview released through Netflix after the ceremony, Lee addressed those disappointed he had not taken the top prize. "Some people may be disappointed it wasn't the Golden Lion, but I think this is enough," he said. "The award is the award, but what gives me the greatest strength is the expressions on the faces of the audiences I met for the first time in Venice — that feeling of emotions passing between us."

"Possible Love" took the Grand Jury Prize, the festival's second-highest honor, in the main competition. It is Lee's first Venice award since he won the best director prize for "Oasis" in 2002 — a gap of 24 years.

"Possible Love" is Lee's first film since "Burning" (2018) and his first Netflix production. It stars Jeon Do-yeon, Sul Kyung-gu, Jo In-sung and Jo Yeo-jeong.

The film follows a documentary filmmaker (Jo Yeo-jeong) with a wealthy husband (Jo In-sung) as she trains her camera on a couple of laid-off workers (Sul Kyung-gu and Jeon Do-yeon), bringing people of vastly different class backgrounds face to face with each other's lives and desires.

"Possible Love" opens in select theaters in South Korea on Sept. 23 and will be available on Netflix on Nov. 6.