NEXT SOHEE

Sohee (Kim Si-eun) is studying pet care and is a talented dancer, full of life and determination, but when her college tells her she should be honoured to get an irrelevant placement in a call centre – which she must complete for her diploma – she is keen to do her best. Even at her initial interview, she realises her new employers have no interest in her; for the company scooping up cheap labour, the school and government funding bodies, these “externalship” programmes are all about their balance sheets. Halfway through July Jung’s slow-burning but genuinely angry film, there is a suicide, and the story is taken up by Detective Oh Yoo-jin (Doona Bae). She defies her superiors’ indifference and the obstructions thrown in her way by Sohee’s employers to discover where the responsibility lies. A stunning and unexpected film that looks into how systems thrive off of suffering and despair.