Lim Yoo-ri’s Forest of Echoes (2023) Heads La Cinef of the 77^th Cannes

Forest of Echoes (2023) by Lim Yoo-ri, a student of the Department of Filmmaking, School of Film, TV & Multimedia, was officially invited to the La Cinef of the 77^th Cannes Festival. This work is also the selection of the CJ Cultural Foundation’s 2022 Story Up project which supports young creators in short film production.

La Cinef is a section where student films from around the world compete with one another. Lim’s Forest of Echoes (2023) follows the story of a female protagonist who happens to run into a forbidden forest being chased by a group of drunken men. There the protagonist bumps into an acquaintance in her wedding dress who used to live next door until having left the town a few years ago to marry an elder man in the neighborhood. Their encounter uncovers the truth of women’s lives restricted under the patriarchal system and customs of the time.

Lim Yoo-ri grew into a filmmaker while practicing production with two films – “Intrusion” (2021) and “I Present to You, Yoori Lim” (2022). Forest of Echoes (2023) is her first short film.

To date, the School of Film, TV & Multimedia has been invited to the La Cinef (Cinéfondation) which now celebrates its 27^th anniversary 11 times. It is the greatest number of invitations received not only for art schools in Korea but for those from overseas. Notably, Yoon Daewon’s Cicada (2021) took 2^nd in the La Cinef for the first time for a Korean film, Moon Sujin’s Persona (2022) entered the competition section for the first time for a Korean animated film, and Seo Jeong-mi’s The Lee Families (2023) received an invitation to La Cinef and earned a praise.