While more South Korean cinema has reached international audiences in recent years, with considerable cultish acclaim for the work of Park Chan-wook and Kim Ki-duk in particular, the dual extremes of visceral horror and solemn poetic fable have been notably dominant. While both styles are represented in this year’s EIFF (see Cadaver, p 108, and With a Girl of Black Soil, p 81), another strain may be emerging.

Our South Korean viewing this year suggested a whimsical, introverted turn of thought among newer filmmakers, and a particular fondness for films about the process of filmmaking.

The best of these personal, indie-inflected youth comedies by far, Yoon Seong-ho’s debut Milky Way Liberation Front follows a young director’s efforts to get his first feature into production, in the face of romantic abandonment and an increasing memory problem. Protagonist Ryu Yeong-jae (Lim Ji-gyu) is a fretful type, with the thick specs and anxious preoccupations of a young Woody Allen, whose desire to create meaningful art is persistently frustrated by his collaborators, his circumstances, and his own limitations.

Straight-up comedy is one of the hardest forms to translate, but with its absurdist visual humour and its knowing gags on the film business, Milky Way Liberation Front is direct and engaging in its humour. Sharply aware – and critical – of pretension, but unafraid to acknowledge its characters’ deeper emotions, it’s an indier-than-thou take on acerbic US industry satires like Living in Oblivion and The Player. It also comprises a solemn warning to film festival staff: when hosting an onstage Q&A with a filmmaker, try to ensure that none of your own disgruntled exes get access to the audience mic...