Nowhere to Lay My Eyes

Best Direction, Best Performance, 2026 Locarno Film Festival

Sanghee (Kim Min-hee), is an experimental filmmaker with the cheerful self-sufficiency that comes from knowing your chosen life will never impress your parents. Her mother, in turn, does everything she can do to support her adult daughter, except supporting her choices. They get together rarely, and when they do, they restage their initial wounds. It’s a classic dynamic that Hong Sang-soo makes fresh by avoiding the temptation to resolve the conflict, instead examining it with humor and curiosity.

Added to the mix are: Sanghee’s dorky, obedient brother, who can’t help but be compared to her; her new stepsister, who attaches a bit too eagerly; and Sanghee’s new stepfather, a philosophical, open-minded filmmaker – the kind of parent she’s never had, but who now she’s outgrown needing. He is making a documentary about burial rituals for beloved parents, a topic which lands like an ominous joke when he describes it.

In the experimental films Sanghee makes, she gives a voice to the wildflowers she sees on the side of the road. They say, “I accept everything, I am quiet.” And she asks nothing of her films, posting them for free to YouTube. It’s a gesture that matches Hong Sang-soo’s recent turn to intentional amateurism in his filmmaking—amateur being a word rooted in love.

– Lev Kalman