Finecut fronts phone film

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Sales News

First came the Apple hype. Then came the prestigious festival selection. Now it is time for business.

Top South Korean sales agent Finecut is to handle international rights to Night Fishing (파란만장), the film that was recently shot on an iPhone 4 by Old Boy (올드보이) director Park Chan-wook (박찬욱) and his brother Park Chan-kyong (박찬경).

The film is distributed in a limited number of Korean cinemas from today by Innocean Worldwide (이노션 월드와이드), Hyundai Motor's in-house creative agency.

Several short films have been made using camera phones and Korea even held an iPhone 4 film festival in October, but Night Fishing is the first to receive a theatrical release in the country.

International distributors will get to see the film in Berlin's short film competition section. Finecut, which previously represented Park's breakout Old Boy, will be responsible for closing deals with buyers at the European Film Market.

The 33-minute mostly black-and-white film follows a fisherman who encounters a female shaman and goes from this life to the next. It stars Oh Kwang-rok (오광록) and actress-singer Lee Jung-hyun (이정현, A Petal 꽃잎, pictured).

It was made with regular film equipment, but substituted eight different phones with various lens attachments for conventional movie cameras. It cost W150 million ($133,000), its budget financed by KT, the local distributor of the iPhone in South Korea.

With a filmography that also includes Thirst (박쥐) and Joint Security Area (공동경비구역 JSA), Park Chan-wook is the better known of the two brothers. But his younger brother, a visual artist, is currently receiving exposure with his Anyang, Paradise City (다시 태어나고 싶어요, 안양에) playing in the Bright Future section of the Rotterdam festival that opened yesterday.

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