Young Korean director wins 2nd prize at Cannes awards for student filmmakers

Director Yoon Dae-won’s “Cicada” has won the second prize at the 24th Cinefondation Selection, the Cannes Film Festival announced Friday.

“Cicada,” a Korean short film portraying a transgender prostitute Chang-hyun and his old friend, was invited to the Cinefondation, a category for student filmmakers.

Cinefondation, established in 1998, is devoted to spotlighting new talents in the film industry.

This year’s selection consisted of 17 short and medium-length films, chosen out of 1,835 submitted nominees from 490 film schools around the globe.

Yoon’s film is his graduation project at the Korea National University of Arts’ School of Film.

The prizes were awarded after the screening of the four winning films in Cannes on Thursday. The first prize went to “The Salamander Child” directed by Theo Degen while “Love Stories on the Move” directed by Carina Gabriela Dasoveanu and “Cantareira” directed by Rodrigo Ribeyro were joint winners of the third prize.

Yoon won awards at the Catholic Film Festival and Korea Youth Film Festival in 2020 with his short film “Bird Cage.” He has also produced music videos for K-pop artists BTOB and Jo Kwon.

With the second prize came with a prize money of 11,250 euros ($13,282).

By Lee Si-jin (sj_lee@heraldcorp.com)