Korean documentary ‘Weekends’ wins audience award in Berlin film fest

Director Lee Dong-ha’s debut documentary film “Weekends” placed third in the Panorama Audience Award Panorama Dokumente at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival which ended Monday.

The public casts votes for the Panorama Audience Award, which has been given out since 1999. The best documentary category of the award was first established in 2011. 

This year, Panorama presented 51 feature-length films from 33 countries, of which 17 were documentaries. A total of 30,000 votes were cast.

The top prizes for the Panorama awards went to Udi Aloni’s “Junction 48” in the fiction film category, and Tomer and Barak Heymann’s “Who’s Gonna Love Me Now?” in the documentary film category. 

“Weekends” follows the story of Korea’s first amateur gay chorus group “G-Voice,” which was founded in 2003 under the Korean Gay Men’s Human Rights Group “Chingusai (Between Friends).” The film centers on the group’s preparation for its special 10th anniversary concert and depicts the everyday lives of the chorus members, including their struggles with prejudice against homosexuality, homophobia as well as frictions within the choir. Filmed in the style of glossy music videos, “Weekends” is a commentary on the current status of sexual minority groups in Korea.

“We are honored to achieve international recognition for our choir G-Voice,” said Lee Jong-geol, general director of Chingusai, who also mentioned plans to create greater publicity for the group’s activities in Korea and abroad. 

“We are working to release the film in Korea no later than this year, but details have yet to be decided,” added Lee.

“Weekends” was also nominated for the Teddy Award, an international award, for films with queer topics, presented by an independent jury as an official award of the Berlin Film Festival.

In addition to Lee’s documentary film, two other Korean films were screened out-of-competition at the 66th Berlin Film Festival. They were E J-yong’s “The Bacchus Lady” in the Panorama section and Yoon Ga-eun’s “The World of Us” in the Generation Kplus section.

By Jung Eun-jin (jej2403@heraldcorp.com)