FILM OF THE YEAR 2023

In Frankfurt, the Protestant Film Jury in Germany honoured the American film "Past Lives" (OT: Past Lives, USA 2023) by Celine Song as FILM OF THE YEAR 2023. The film's distributor, STUDIOCANAL, was honoured at the award ceremony in the cinema of the Deutsches Filmmuseum on 8 December. The laudatory speech was held by director and professor Sung-Hyung Cho.

The jury presents the FILM OF THE MONTH award for a film of the monthly cinema programmes. It selected the FILM OF THE YEAR from the 2023 films honoured. In its statement, the jury said: "In her feature film debut, writer and director Celine Song tells her own story of emigration from South Korea to North America. PAST LIVES is about a world in which transnational lifestyles have become a matter of course, but in which people must constantly renegotiate them individually according to their wishes and needs. The film's title refers to the Korean concept of "In-Yun", according to which people are destined for each other and meet or re-meet fatefully."

Link: Website of the Protestant Film Jury