Director Jung Yu-mi's 'House of Existence' Advances to Berlin Film Festival Short Film Competition

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Isul] Director Jung Yumi's animated film "House of Existence" has been selected for the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival, aiming for the Golden Bear Award.

On the 21st, the Korean Film Council announced, "Jung Yumi, a graduate of the 21st regular course in animation at the Korean Academy of Film Arts, has been officially invited to the short film competition section (Berlinale Shorts) of the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival (Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin) with her film 'House of Existence.'"

The Berlin International Film Festival, one of the world's top three film festivals since 1951, will be held in Berlin, Germany, from the 10th to the 20th of next month. Among the 21 works competing in the short film category this year, "House of Existence" is the only domestic entry.

"House of Existence" is an 8-minute short animation that uses the house as a metaphor symbolizing the human inner self, discussing "the experience of values we believed to be eternal at certain moments in our lives collapsing." The process of the house breaking down is as painful as the process of the ego shattering, but from the ruins where everything has vanished, the most precious thing is discovered. The film features realistic depictions using Director Jung’s distinctive detailed pencil drawing technique.

This is the third time Director Jung Yumi has entered the short film competition at the Berlin International Film Festival, following "Math Test" (2010) and "Love Play" (2013).

Director Jung's "Dust Child" was the first Korean animation to be screened at the Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009. In 2014, her graphic novel "Dust Child" won the Bologna Ragazzi Award (New Horizons category), known as the "Nobel Prize of children's literature," making her the first Korean illustrator to receive this honor. Recently, she was invited as an official member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States. She also became the first Korean to win the Grand Prix at the Zagreb International Animation Festival, one of the world's four major animation festivals.