BROKER

On a rainy night, a young woman leaves her newborn at a church’s baby hatch. Sang-hyun (Song Kang-ho), the owner of a laundrette, and his accomplice Dong-soo (Gang Dong-won) secretly take the child in: they sell babies from the hatch to couples who shy away from the official route. But the mother So-young (Lee Ji-eun) comes back – and instead of reporting the two men, she joins them to vet the buyers herself. Two policewomen (Bae Doona, Lee Joo-young) follow the minibus to catch the handover in the act. “Broker” by Hirokazu Kore-eda (South Korea, 2022) thus becomes a road movie about a family that should not exist.

Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda films in Korean and with a Korean cast for the first time, photographed by Hong Kyung-pyo. He himself calls the film a counterpart to “Shoplifters”: once again outsiders who form a family that no authority recognises; once again a gaze that condemns no one and does not narrate away the melancholy. In the Cannes 2022 competition, Song Kang-ho received the award for best actor and the film received the Ecumenical Jury Prize. “Broker” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2022 in the Asian Masters Night section.

Shown at the 2022 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2022 · Film Archive