JEONJU Project Names 2021 Winners!

? The 13th JEONJU Project Awards Ceremony was held at the Korea Traditional Culture Center and announced winners for 11 categories.

? JEONJU Project this year successfully hosted 237 business meetings.

? Participants reviewed and discussed ways to improve support for documentary filmmaking, especially editing.

The 13th JEONJU Project, an industrial program of the JEONJU International Film Festival, finished its three-day run with an award ceremony held at 6 PM on May 4 at the Korea Traditional Culture Center. At the ceremony, winners for 11 categories were named, including JEONJU lab 2021, K-DOC CLASS, and the Avin & Company Award.

Three drama projects won JEONJU lab 2021 award. These projects will receive planning and development funding for the production. The winners were About My Daughter (director: Cha Jeongyoon), A smiling woman (director: Yun Simkyoung), and The Faceless Man (director: Lee Wonsik). The JICA Award, sponsored by the Jeonju IT&CT Industry Promotion Agency, went to director Ko Duhyun´s documentary project The Eyeglasses and director Lee Youngmi´s documentary project Deserve to be loved (w/t). The JICA Award covers sound mastering for winning titles. The Eyeglasses also won the Furmo DT Award, which supports English subtitling to submit to international film festivals. JEONJU Cine Complex Award went to Deserve to be loved and Seire, a drama project by Lee Youngmi and Park Kang, respectively. This award supports postproduction processes such as digital color grading. JEONJU Cine Complex Award for short films went to Alumni meeting by director Kim Go-eun and When you grow up by director Kim Eunhee. The award supports filming devices, access to editing studios, and digital color grading.

Established this year, the JEONJU Film Commission Award went to director Kim Eunhye Hong´s short-form drama project titled Get grilled, fried, and thrown. The award supports access to filming studios. The SJM Cultural Foundation and JEONJU IFF co-hosted K-DOC CLASS this year. Among the three titles selected for RoughCut Navigating, which supports Korean documentary projects, two titles won awards. The SJM Cultural Foundation RoughCut Booster award, which supports KRW 2 million film production, went to Saving a Dragonfly by director Hong Da-ye. The SJM Cultural Foundation Editing Booster award went to Mom´s Care Service by director Jeon Chan-young. I am more, a documentary project by director Lee Ilha won Frumo DT Award, which supports English subtitling for international film festivals. Avin & Company Award, an award established this year, went to Deserve to be loved (director: Lee Youngmi) while Avin Creator Award went to The Eyeglasses (director: Ko Duhyun).

Additionally, the JEONJU IFF announced the final list of titles selected as JEONJU Cinema Project 2022. Among the shortlisted titles first unveiled last year, the following four were named JEONJU Cinema Project 2022 and showcased at the event. They are My Genie by director Park Hyuckjee, A Flower In the Mouth by director Eric Baudelaire, Samsara (w/t), a documentary project by director Lois Patino, and Three detectives: paper, clay, or stone, a drama project by director Alan Segal.

JEONJU Project successfully hosted 237 business meetings with enthusiastic participants of the industry. It also offered a venue for experts to have a roundtable discussion about editing in documentary films. They had in-depth discussions about common problems filmmakers encounter while editing their work and suggested better ways to support documentary film projects.

Sung Moon, a programmer of JEONJU IFF, explained, "This year, we eyewitnessed a significant growth of the JEONJU Project. The participants acknowledged that the existing support system for filmmakers might lack details, in particular, for later phases of filmmaking. They went on to make suggestions for support systems. At the JEONJU Conference, we hoped to expand coverage of discussion as we encountered novel forms of narratives. We will keep searching for creative and alternatives ways for filmmaking in the middle of rapid changes in the platforms. Growing sometimes means springing back from desperation. We hope JEONJU Project serves as robust support for creators who lock themselves up and want to find their ways to grow. We will keep putting our effort to serve as a platform to best support filmmakers. We hope to encourage and empower the creators to keep creating and get the best out of their work."