Oscar-nominated Korean Diaspora Film Follows 'lives We Leave Behind'

Umer Jamshaid Published March 07, 2024 | 02:50 PM

Seoul, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th Mar, 2024) A Korean-Canadian director's debut feature film -- a quiet romance exploring time, longing and lost chances -- has arrived in South Korea for theatre release after garnering two Oscar nominations.

Ever since South Korea's "Parasite" became the first non-English language film to win a Best Picture Oscar in 2020, works by Korean diaspora filmmakers have witnessed a significant surge of global interest.

Celine Song's "Past Lives" comes alongside the critical success of other works featuring the Korean overseas experience, such as "Minari", "Pachinko" and Netflix's "Beef".

The film follows a Korean-American woman in New York who is visited by her childhood crush from Seoul more than 20 years after she abruptly left South Korea for North America.

It was a favourite at last year's Sundance, won best picture at this year's Independent Spirit Awards and has received two nominations for the upcoming academy Awards: best picture and best original screenplay.

The project was inspired by Song's own experience -- drinking with her husband who does not speak Korean and her childhood friend who was visiting from South Korea in New York -- where she had to act as an interpreter for the gathering.

"As I was doing the interpretation, I also realised that I was interpreting two parts of my own story, my personal history itself and my identity," Song said at a press conference in Seoul.

Her film skillfully explores what it means to live in the realm of "what ifs", and one's complex relationship with a younger self that exists solely in the past and in places they no longer inhabit.

"We are not fantasy characters nor do we traverse multiple universes or parallel dimensions," Song said in an interview with AFP and others, when asked about the film's title.

"But because we pass through so much time and space, and because we age and we relocate, I believe that there are always lives that we end up leaving behind."