South Korea has selected Possible Love, the new drama from acclaimed director Lee Chang-dong, as its official submission for the Best International Feature Film category at the 2027 Academy Awards. The Korean Film Council’s selection committee announced the decision, with the film now set to compete for one of the industry’s most closely watched international honors.
Explaining its choice, the selection committee praised the film for its “cinematic completeness, the clarity of the director’s message and its excellent mise-en-scène.” The jury also highlighted Lee’s portrayal of multidimensional characters and their complex relationships through what it described as “profound humanism and delicate direction,” qualities long considered hallmarks of the filmmaker’s work.
Possible Love follows two married couples living starkly different lives: laid-off worker Ho-seok and his wife Mi-ok, and documentary filmmaker Ye-ji and her wealthy husband, Sang-woo. As their worlds collide, cracks begin to appear in both marriages. The film stars Sul Kyung-gu as Ho-seok, Jeon Do-yeon as Mi-ok, Cho Yeo-jeong as Ye-ji, and Zo In-sung as Sang-woo, reuniting Lee with two of his most celebrated past collaborators.
The film marks a major return for Lee, arriving eight years after his last feature, 2018’s Burning, and reuniting him with Jeon Do-yeon and Sul Kyung-gu, the stars of his earlier classics Secret Sunshine and Peppermint Candy. Its journey to the screen was not without difficulties. According to trade reports, the project’s original financing collapsed after private backers pulled out and public film-fund support fell through. The cast reportedly agreed to reduce their fees to help keep the production alive before Netflix ultimately stepped in to rescue the project.
Across just six features over a three-decade career, Lee has established himself as one of Korean cinema’s most acclaimed filmmakers, despite never winning a major festival’s top prize or receiving an Oscar nomination. Oasis won the Special Director’s Prize at Venice in 2002, while Secret Sunshine earned Jeon Do-yeon the Best Actress award at Cannes in 2007. Poetry won the Best Screenplay prize at Cannes in 2010, and Burning received the International Critics’ Prize at Cannes in 2018, later becoming the first Korean film to be shortlisted in the Best International Feature category at the Oscars. Lee also previously served as South Korea’s Minister of Culture in the early 2000s.
Possible Love will have its world premiere in the main competition section of the Venice Film Festival next month, followed by a gala screening at the Toronto International Film Festival. Netflix is giving the film an awards-qualifying theatrical run in select cinemas beginning October 23 across Korea, North America, Britain, and Japan, ahead of its global streaming premiere on November 6. The film has a runtime of two hours and 44 minutes.
South Korea’s selection continues a recent run of internationally acclaimed titles representing the country at the Oscars, following Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice, which was chosen as Korea’s entry last year. Only one film can be submitted by each country annually for the Best International Feature category.
With a director returning from an eight-year absence, a cast that reunites some of Korean cinema’s most decorated performers, and a high-profile festival run already lined up at Venice and Toronto, Possible Love enters the road to the Oscars as one of the most closely watched international contenders of the upcoming awards season.
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