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The Tenants
Directed by Yoon Eun-kyoung
Hosted by Director Yoon Eun-kyung
Official selection
Singapore International Film Festival 2023
Hong Kong international Film Festival 2024
Fantaspoa 2024
Honors
Best Director, Asian Feature Film - Singapore International Film Festival 2023
FIPRESCI Prize - Singapore International Film Festival 2023
Director
Yoon Eun-kyoung
Executive Producer
Yoon Eun-kyoung
Producer
Ahn Mong-sik
Writer
Yoon Eun-kyoung
Cast
Kim Dae-gun, Heo Dong-won, Park So-hyun
contact
OLO MEDIA
In a dreary, near-future version of Seoul, citizens have become rather soulless as overpopulation, air pollution, and housing costs have reached an all-time high. Like most twenty-somethings, Shin-dong has been dedicating his life to the grind, isolating himself from friends and family in hopes of earning a promotion that comes with a transfer to a new utopian city called Sphere 2. But when his landlord starts threatening eviction, he has no choice but to resort to Wolwolse, a program that allows tenants to rent out parts of their space to other people. Almost immediately, an interested party knocks on the door: a tall, eccentric gentleman and his seemingly mute wife, whom Shin-dong decides to take in despite their unusual request of residing in the bathroom instead of the living room. After all, desperate times call for desperate measures, and they seem agreeable enough… Or so he thought, until their strange behaviours start escalating into a true waking nightmare.
Winner of the Best Director Award and the FIPRESCI Prize at the 34th Singapore International Film Festival, THE TENANTS is an eerie, claustrophobic tale of alienation and societal pressures. A rising talent in the indie horror scene, writer-director Yoon Eun-kyoung creates a unique blend of soft science fiction, Kafkaesque absurdism, and dark comedy to highlight Korea’s very real social inequality problems—the same ones her famous compatriot Bong Joon-ho tackled in the multi-Oscar-winning PARASITE. Our protagonist (literally) cannot afford to lose his sanity, and silence becomes just as unsettling as a bump in the night when his only safe space is being invaded. Emphasized by the film’s striking black-and-white cinematography, Shin-dong’s anxiety feels incredibly familiar despite his surreal predicament, which is exactly what makes it such a powerful horror story. – Alyssia Duval-Nguon
Showings
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