These are twelve films you shouldn’t miss at the 9th Seoul Guro International Kids Film Festival which is taking place from July 1st – 7th 2021, in Korea.

About the festival:
The principal objective of Seoul Guro International Kids Film Festival (GUKIFF) is to present the most outstanding films for children, youth, and families produced in all over the world. Established in 2013, GUKIFF is striving to encourage young generations who will lead the film industry and support them to get various opportunities. GUKIFF realized the importance of culture that all the family members can share. GUKIFF wants to introduce various genres of domestic and foreign films dealing with children, family, and dream themes.

– Selected Films –

I really hated you. Until I met you again… I hate being bored, Ishida Sho. What kind of man Gandhi is, the evolution of mankind—I don’t know. One day, a transfer student appeared to take away Shoya’s boredom: Nishimiya Shoko. The child was said to be deaf. Despite Shoya’s mischievous jokes, he was always smiling. I became irritated. Shoko eventually transferred to his school, and Shoya Ishida became a loner. Six years later, Shoya, who felt there was no point in living like this anymore, finally visits Shoko: the voices of the first two men. The meeting between the two begins to change the classroom, the school, and Shoya’s life and Shoko’s life.

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Inspired by true events, Beans is about a Mohawk girl on the cusp of adolescence who must grow up fast and become her own kind of warrior during the armed stand-off known as the 1990 Oka Crisis.

Trailer:

On April 4, 2000, Joon-won, Choi Yong-jin’s second daughter, disappears from a playground near her home. As time passes, the father’s desperation to find Joon-won turns into guilt at failing to protect her. Meanwhile, Joon-sun, his first daughter, watches her family’s tragedy in silence, and still cannot leave her father’s side even as an adult. By the fifth volume of Choi’s investigation notes, written while searching for Joon-won, an unexpected witness appears, prompting the police to reinvestigate the case seventeen years later. With a glimmer of hope of finding Joon-won, a subtle tension arises between Joon-sun and her father.

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As Jung-ah attempts to rebuild her career a year after giving birth to her first child, she faces difficulties that put her through the test of whether she can truly have it all.

In a fishing village lives a creature with the body of a pig, the nose of an elephant, the ears of a horse, and feet like a rhinoceros; it sneaks into the village and devours nightmares! Ah Keat looks forward to the day when he can see the creature for himself. One day, when Ah Keat’s father passes away in an accident at sea, he sets off in search of the creature, hoping that it can help him find his father…

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20-year-old Jung-hee doesn’t go to college and works part-time. She goes to meet Min-young, her old high school roommate, for the first time in a while and wants to play with her as before. However, Min-young, a college student, is busy sending correction emails regarding her credits and feels uncomfortable by Jung-hee’s visit.

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From a scrappy, vacant-lot training site in Alexandria, Egypt to the Olympic Games, 14 year-old Zebiba stands at the precipice between childhood and weightlifting champion – guided only by her dedicated yet relentless coach, Captain Ramadan, and her own competitive edge. Can she make the leap?

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A tender and sweeping story about what roots us, Minari follows a Korean-American family that moves to a tiny Arkansas farm in search of their own American Dream. The family home changes completely with the arrival of their sly, foul-mouthed, but incredibly loving grandmother. Amidst the instability and challenges of this new life in the rugged Ozarks, Minari shows the undeniable resilience of family and what really makes a home.

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12-year-old Seon-yu and her mother struggle to make a new start after her father kills himself, leaving behind enormous debt. In her new school, Seon-yu regains her smile thanks to her reckless but innocent classmate Jung-gook. However, Seon-yu’s grandmother abruptly appears in the school claiming a share on her dead son’s insurance money. Now Seon-yu’s secret is revealed before everyone. In the meantime, Seon-yu’s mother slowly loses her will to live and proposes a suspicious journey to Seon-yu…

Trailer:

Four first-year middle school students are members of a photography club. Before leaving for summer break, the teacher hands out an old-fashioned analog camera to each of them and asks them to take pictures with them as a summer assignment. The assignment topic is “the end of the world.” They all have different opinions on it, but as one of the girls suggests, they decide to take a subway to Sinchang Station, the last stop on Seoul Metropolitan Subway Line 1.

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Chunhee, who is left alone after her parents died right after the IMF crisis, has been living in her mother’s childhood home ever since. She makes a living by peeling garlic, and saves some money for treatment for hyperhidrosis. Everything was fine until she was struck by lightning. When she comes around and gets home, she encounters herself waiting for her, to be specific, her younger self.

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12-year-old girl Hae-Kum stumbles upon an unconscious woman while heading home after playing with her friends at the park. Hae-Kum and her friends stand still, unable to go near the woman. Hae-Kum makes up her mind and calls 911, sending the woman away in an ambulance. After all the friends have headed home, Hae-Kum finds something that the woman had dropped, a posting for a missing child. She decides to find the child for the woman.

For more information please visit: https://www.movie-guro.or.kr