In Her Place

[projekktor id=’17612′]

In Her Place is a Canadian/South Korean drama from writer/director Albert Shin. Shin was awarded the Scotiabank Jay Scott Prize for an emerging artist by the Toronto Film Critics Association last month. The film stars Yoon Da Kyung, Ahn Ji Hye, and Kil Hae Yeon.

A mysterious woman arrives at a Korean farm, to stay with a mother and her strange teenage daughter. A mutual arrangement ties them together, but the apparent stroke of luck proves fraught with unresolved turmoil and tragedy. This is the emotional landscape of Albert Shin’s drama IN HER PLACE – a remarkable and moving look at the emptiness that can haunt us, contrasted against our existential need to “replace” ourselves with offspring.

“Secret adoptions used to be very common in Korea. The pressure to bear children and continue the family bloodline is immense,” Shin says of his inspiration for the film. “This idea started a long journey that would eventually have me working in my second language, shooting in a foreign land and creating characters that are worlds away from who I am. However, any perceived disadvantages actually helped me narrow the focus and strive for a specificity that helped in a strange way communicate something more universal.”

In Her Place is rated 14A.