The Day She Returns

Official Selection, 2026 Berlin International Film Festival
Official Selection, 2026 New York Film Festival

It’s like a talk show setup: on one side is the charismatic actress, wearing white, framed by a plush dark restaurant booth. Opposite her, a young journalist in modest black leans across the table asking questions. Then comes another journalist, then another. They look up to the actress: divorce, art, and motherhood have served her middle-age epiphanies. “Love yourself the most,” she urges each of them. Between every interview, she kneels in the grass in a Buddha-like posture, and vapes.

Hong Sang-soo’s comedy uses the ritualistic repetitiveness of film press tours to study how even casual encounters reshape lives. Three young women bring out different sides of the actress Jeong-su. In turn, the interviewers project their own anxieties and ambitions onto her. What are we doing when we talk to other people–are we actors in their lives? Are they in ours?

A question Jeong-su often asks her interviewers is, “Really?” making them repeat their criticism or compliment back to her. It’s a common question in Hong’s films and reveals a key to his philosophy. The first time something happens it isn’t to be trusted: it needs to be doubled and reenacted in order to become really real.

– Lev Kalman