With her younger brother Sanghoon (Shin Seokho), Sanghee (Kim Minhee) visits the house in Jeju Island where her mother settled. Her mother, who divorced long ago, has since remarried, and Sanghee hasn’t seen her in a long time. She confronts her mother’s new husband who makes documentaries, the daughter of him who lives with them, Sang-hoon who seems relatively closer to the mother than Sanghee herself, and her mother who is unfamiliar and “overwhelming.” Within these awkward dynamics, Sanghee reflects and meditates on them and herself. Sanghee’s voice-over narration sounds distinctly poignant even among the voices in Hong’s previous works, while the unpredictable weather depicted across three subtitles mirrors the tremors stirring within Sanghee’s heart. Nowhere to Lay My Eyes is a world swaying in both the winds of Jeju and the soul. Yet in the film’s latter half, when the steadfastness of the ”small things” Sanghee cherishes and believes in finally reveals itself with humility, a wondrous light washes over that turbulence. Choi Myeonggil delivers a maternal portrait never before seen in Hong’s films. It is the winner of the Best Director Award, the Best Performance Award (Kim Minhee), and the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the 2026 Locarno Film Festival.
Hong Sangsoo was born in Seoul in 1960. He entered Chung-Ang University in 1980 majoring in theater direction before switching his major to film, and subsequently studied film at the California Institute of the Arts and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Since his first feature film, The Day a Pig Fell into the Well (1996), he has released a total of 34 feature films and made several short films. His 35th feature film, Nowhere to Lay My Eyes, has been invited to the international competition section of the Locarno Film Festival, marking his fifth time in the section following Our Sunhi (2013), Right Now, Wrong Then (2015), Hotel by the River (2018), and By the Stream (2024).
From Busan International Film Festival 2026, No. 31
