THE WORLD OF LOVE by YOON Ga-eun, winner of the 2025 Montgolfière d’or, is released in French cinemas on May 6th.
The biggest independent film success in South Korea in 2025, Yoon Ga-eun’s third feature film, THE WORLD OF LOVE, continues a trajectory whose very title echoes those of his two previous films (THE WORLD OF US and THE HOUSE OF US), as if to seal their sensitive continuity. Seventeen-year-old Joo-in embodies a vibrant, seemingly carefree youth, suddenly troubled by a petition to expel a former sex offender. His refusal, far from being naive, reveals a deeply personal stance: not to reduce victims to a fixed identity of suffering.
With subtle touches, the filmmaker brings to light the shadows surrounding the teenager—a friend facing trial, an absent father, a mother struggling and weakened by alcoholism—without ever resorting to predictable narratives. On the contrary, with great subtlety, she raises another point of focus: it’s not about denying the trauma, but about refusing to let it define those who have suffered it entirely. In a society where the euphemism of sexual violence creates distance, Yoon Ga-eun chooses a nuanced style of writing that never softens the blow, allowing her characters to exist beyond the sole narrative of the violence they endured. A remarkably insightful work, attentive to the unique ways of surviving and rebuilding oneself.
DO YOU LOVE ME, an Official Selection at the last festival, is also released in theaters on May 6.
DO YOU LOVE ME by Lana Daher · France / Lebanon / Germany
Comprising snippets from over 20,000 pieces of images and sounds drawn from films, news bulletins, home videos, photographs, and more, DO YOU LOVE ME is an unquestionably monumental effort. Well, it is a monument, full stop: a dizzying collage of moments in the contemporary history of Lebanon as seen by cineastes and commoners alike. Lana Daher pays tribute to the resilience and resistance of her people as ever-repeating cycles of uncertainty and violence engulf her country. Ingenious in teasing new meanings through her montage, Daher promises in one intertitle, “You hand me your tragedies, I’ll give you my imagination.” And she does exactly that: welcome to Lebanon, remixed, rejuvenated, and beloved by pained observers of both past and present.
