Film critic Dogyeong (Gi Doyeong) belatedly learns of an old friend’s death. As it happens, this comes not long after the demolition of an old theater in Gangwon Province. Somehow, the two events do not feel all that different to her. As her work as a critic takes her from place to place, Dogyeong searches for her late friend’s short film and visits theaters and screening spaces where it might once have been shown. Things I Left at the Theater is an assured new work from Park Kun-young, who has thoughtfully and earnestly portrayed profound loss and the time that follows it. Cinema as a material form and a value that have been lost and rendered obsolete; the theater as both place and memory; the layers of time imperceptibly inscribed in and absorbed by it - Dogyeong is driven by a deep respect and profound longing for this immaterial history, and that same impulse carries the film forward. In a way possible through cinema and cinema alone, the film summons back into being those who have vanished.
Park Kun-young was born in Daejeon in 1984. He studied Korean language and literature at Kyung Hee University before pursuing further studies at the Graduate School of Cinematic Content at Dankook University. He began directing films in 2008 and is currently based in Gangwon-do and Seoul, where he works in film and other fields. He directed the feature films To My River (2018) and A Distant Place (2020).
From Busan International Film Festival 2026, No. 31
