Kim Jee-woon, director of “I met the Devil” is more and more afraid in the cinema

Kim Jee-woon knows all about shock cinema and he is a regular at the Gérardmer Festival with his prizes for 2 sisters in 2004 and I met the Devil in 2011 and then an award for his entire career in 2014. The South Korean director gave a masterclass this Saturday in front of an enthusiastic audience.

“I came in person for the first time to Gérardmer in 2014, he remembers for 20 minutes. But my award broke in my suitcase on the way back. It looked like a real horror film festival trophy then and the festival was kind enough to send me another one. The director has left the post-production of his new film cobweb, black comedy about a megalomaniac director, to celebrate the 30th edition of the Festival.

The anguish of human relations

“It’s funny, I’m more and more scared at the cinema,” he confides. “I find it more and more difficult to tolerate on-screen violence such as that which I have been able to show in my films. And to evoke the severed Achilles tendon in I met the Devil: “The special effects team had done a remarkable job, to the point that this scene hurts me when I look at it when I directed it,” he admits. The Exorcist by William Friedkin, seen as a teenager, also marked him a lot. “The scene that inspired the poster with the fog, the light and the silhouette of the priest haunts me,” he says. “I try to find the same atmosphere in my films. »

However, horror cinema has almost disappeared from Korean screens. “There aren’t really any more in Korea because the anxiety is intense in real life between unemployment and inflation,” explains Kim Jee-woon. “On the other hand, Westerners feel the threat from South Korea more than we do. The director admits that it is the people who feed his anxieties. “In fact, what scares me the most are the relationships between human beings,” he admits. “It’s them that I try to exorcise in my films. “And to conclude with a smile:” I like interviews because they allow me to reflect on my work and on myself: they are like a form of therapy. »

We hope to be able to continue the treatment at the Cannes Film Festival because his latest film, Cobweb, swill be ready at the right time to be shown on the Croisette next May.

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