Argentine Korean director Cecilia Kang wins best emerging director award at Locarno

Buenos Aires native honored for debut feature 'Hijo Mayor' at 78th Locarno Film Festival

Cecilia Kang poses during a photocall at the 78th Locarno International Film Festival, in Locarno, Switzerland, Saturday (EPA)

Cecilia Kang won best emerging director at the Locarno Film Festival on Saturday for "Hijo Mayor" ("Elder Son"), her first fiction feature examining Korean immigration to South America.

The filmmaker competed in the festival's Filmmakers of the Present section, which showcases first and second features. The prize, awarded by the City and Region of Locarno, recognizes a director who has spent nearly a decade chronicling the Korean diaspora experience.

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1985 to Korean immigrants, Kang studied at Argentina's National Film School. Her short "Videojuegos" screened at Berlinale in 2015.

Her 2023 documentary "A Boat Departed From Me Taking Me Away" examined stories of Korean women forced into sexual slavery by Japan's Imperial Army, euphemistically labeled "comfort women," from the perspectives of young Korean Argentine women exploring their own identity and connection to history. The film won special jury and audience prizes at Mar del Plata International Film Festival.

Her feature debut, "Hijo Mayor," follows Antonio, a Korean immigrant who arrives in Paraguay before settling in Argentina. Blending fiction and documentary, the film stars Kim Chang-sung, Suh Sang-bin and Anita B. Queen, alongside documentary segments featuring Kang and her family.

“Hijo mayor” starring Anita B Queen (Locarno Film Festival)

"I make films as a way to understand who I am," Kang told Variety in July. "My own sense of identity has always been shaped by this cultural duality. Even though it has nourished me in many ways, it has also been a complex and contradictory presence in my life."

Kang is also the partner of Singaporean filmmaker Yeo Siew Hua, whose "A Land Imagined" won the Golden Leopard at Locarno in 2018.

The festival’s top prize, the Golden Leopard, went to Japan’s Sho Miyake for "Two Seasons, Two Strangers" — the country’s first Locarno victory since 2007.

Other winners in the Filmmakers of the Present section included Nicolas Graux and Truong Minh Quy's "Hair, Paper, Water," which took the section's top prize.