‘Han Gong-ju’ wins top prize in Fribourg

After winning seven trophies from Rotterdam, Marrakech, Busan and Deauville, Korean helmer Lee Su-jin’s award-winning feature debut “Han Gong-ju” nabbed another award this month, this time at the Festival International de Films de Fribourg.

The film, which tells the tragic tale of a teenage gang rape victim, had its world premiere at the Marrakech International Film Festival in November, where it won its first international prize, given by a jury headed by Martin Scorsese.

Born in 1977, Lee made short film “Papa” in 2004, which was presented at BIFF in 2005. Another short, “Enemy’s Apple,” won two prizes at the Mise-en-scene Short Film Festival in 2007.

Its cinematic accomplishments aside, the film is also noted for its resemblance with the notorious 2004 Miryang gang rape case, in which 44 male high school students in Miryang, South Gyeongsang Province, raped three middle school girls and two high school girls on multiple occasions for over a year.

The film is scheduled to open here on April 17.

By Claire Lee (dyc@heraldcorp.com)