#397 - Hong Sangsoo on In Front of Your Face & Mike Leigh Retrospective Preview

This week on the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, we’re featuring a Q&A with Hong Sangsoo on his new film In Front of Your Face, moderated by FLC’s Director of Programmer Dennis Lim, and a special programmers preview of Human Conditions: The Films of Mike Leigh. After years of living abroad, a middle-aged former actress has returned to South Korea to reconnect with her past and perhaps make amends. Over the course of one day in Seoul, via various encounters—including with her younger sister; a shopkeeper who lives in her converted childhood home; and, finally, a well-known film director with whom she would like to make a comeback—we discover her resentments and regrets, her financial difficulties, and the big secret that’s keeping her aloof from the world. Both beguiling and oddly cleansing in its mix of the spiritual and the cynical, In Front of Your Face finds the endlessly prolific Hong Sangsoo in a particularly contemplative mood; it’s a film that somehow finds that life is at once full of grace and a sick joke. Get showtimes and tickets at filmlinc.org/face. Before the Q&A, listen to a programmer’s preview of Human Conditions: The Films of Mike Leigh, our upcoming retrospective on the British filmmaker, with FLC programmers Dan Sullivan and Maddie Whittle. Taking place May 27 - June 8, Human Conditions: The Films of Mike Leigh, co-presented with Janus Films, will feature brand new restorations, 35mm print screenings, and in-person Q&As with Leigh himself. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/leigh.