We present the winners of the Seoul International Children’s Film Festival which took place from June 15 – 22, 2022.

Feature Competition

Kids Vision Section

Vision Award

14-year-old Scottish surfer Ben Larg wants to conquer one of the most dangerous cold water waves in the world at Mullaghmore, Ireland. If he succeeds, he will become the youngest surfer ever to do so. Danger, opportunity, and parental dilemma collide propelling Ben and his family towards an unknown destiny.  (SICFF 2022)

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Best Director

In a Syrian border village in the early 80’s, Sero attends school for the first time. A new teacher has arrived with the goal of making strapping Panarabic comrades out of the Kurdish children. He preaches hate of the Zionist enemy- the Jews. The lessons confuse Sero because his long-time neighbors are a lovable Jewish family.  (SICFF 2022)

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Best Actor

In the London suburbs, Bela and Jota face serious difficulties when “social services” raise concerns about the safety of their three children. The 7-year-old daughter’s deafness triggers a process in the system that seems to go on forever. (SICFF 2022)

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Tobi comes to Slovenia on summer holidays with his mother. Tobi is not excited to spend a summer away from his father and friends. The situation gets worse when a local gang starts to bully him. Then he meets a free spirited girl Tjaša, who leads him to a retired, blind astronomer Herman. (SICFF 2022)

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Kids Focus

Focus Award

At the age of 16, Taeil got a job as a sewing assistant at Pyeonghwa Market. At the age of 19, he finally became a tailor but could not turn a blind eye to the young female workers and his fellows. First coming to know the existence of ‘the Labor Standards Act’, Taeil struggles to change the labor conditions of Pyeonghwa Market. However, he was fired mercilessly, despite his effort. Now, Taeil resolves to become the spark of hope by himself to break through the walls of unjust reality.  (SICFF 2022)

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Best Director

Hyun-soo, the fastest 100 meter player in Korea in the past. Junseo, a short-range player who is still a high school student, but is getting higher. Currently, Jung Ho, the fastest sprinter in Korea. The three players prepare for the national team selection for their own reasons.  (SICFF 2022)

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Best Actor

The great adventure stories of worn goods that build bridges between people from all walks of life, following a former baseball player, a sleepless student, a new hangman, an imprisoned gangster, and a mysterious father and daughter. (SICFF 2022)

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Short Competition

Kids Creative

Creative Award

Do-won and Ye-rim, who are “best friends,” are writing an exchange diary. (SICFF 2022)1

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This documentary is a short story about the life of the 11years old boy “Abolfazl” and the 8years old girl “Setayesh” who has no birth certificate in one of remote border areas and who move along in hardship and strive for their living. (SICFF 2022)

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Best Director

Cheol’s family is on the brink of going through a divorce. Cheol wants to prevent her parents from getting divorced. One day, Cheol goes to the Han River with his friend Sharon, and accidentally meets a Viagra trafficker. As Cheol has eavesdropped on a phone call that a couple’s relationship can improve through a Viagra, he gets Viagra in his hand, which was dropped by a trafficker who was running away from the police. Sharon suggests giving the drug to Cheol’s parents, so the two of them start a tumultuous operation. (SICFF 2022)

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Getting along with your trouble is the best way to part with anxiety. Kai, a ten-year-old boy with irritable bowel syndrome, plans to send the love letter to his crush, Jenny on Moon Festival. How will this budding love go while followed by a ticking bomb. (SICFF 2022)

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Young Director

A story about the separation of a grandmother who is a funeral director and her granddaughter. The unavoidable last hour comes to the grandmother who was preparing for death, and she tells the story of life and death to her granddaughter, who will be left alone after she leaves.  (SICFF 2022)

Eden, a twelve years old young footballers would like to play a match with his team. The problem is that no one wants to let him play because of his square foot, he then asks for the help of Adrien, his teammate. (SICFF 2022)

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Best Actor

Children came to the church for weekend worship. Jaein among them alone, was lying his face down. One of the most popular kid among the peers got interested in him, and invites him to her birthday party. Next day Jaein full of expectation goes to the meeting place. However Eomji who was supposed to be there didn’t show up and there was only a nervous girl. (SICFF 2022)

A schoolboy of Korean descent, a white crow in a small village where all Kazakhs are. He is in love with a local beauty and is trying in every possible way to be noticed, but his peers who also breathe unevenly towards this girl interfere with him. (SICFF 2022)

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Kids Challenge

Challenge Award

Heejun receives an AI robot ‘Inji’ as a birthday present. Due to the absence of a busy mother, she has to solve many things by herself. She gets a lot of help from Inji: Serving food, helping with homework, and playing with her. Heejun begins to rely on the perfect robot girl for everything. It shows the human that becomes passively according to the development of technology that takes the place of everything. (SICFF 2022)

We thought that after the pandemic everything would go back to the way it was before. It was not so. (SICFF 2022)

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Outstanding Award

Soon-jong went to an English class after school and tried to go to a math academy, but he went to a playground with his friends when he heard that the academy was taking a break due to contact with COVID-19, but he prevented all the playgrounds from playing due to safety issues. (SICFF 2022)

The time is 2050. It is a world in which adults suppress children to raise adolescents as ideal children they want. As time went by, the children felt contradictory to this system, and the rebellion of teenagers began all over the world. As a result, teenagers in Korea are also revolutionary. (SICFF 2022)

A fairy’s voice of consolation in my dream. (SICFF 2022)

Da-reum always tries her best, but she is not on good terms with her friends. One day, she gets upset at them, and then a weird stationery store shows up. (SICFF 2022)

The animated film is based on the work My Family Right or Wrong, Ephraim Kishon. It shows one story from the work. It describes in a humorous way a woman who can’t decide what to wear to welcome… (SICFF 2022)

Our apartment is filled with various household items. Some are gathering dust on the shelf. Lonely and forgotten recluses. But others are constantly in sight. Someone makes a noise, someone shouts, and someone is silent and touchy. Just like people. (SICFF 2022)

The essence of sawabona is felt when a child realizes what it truly means to see and be seen. After escaping a bullying experience, one child saves another. Perhaps they saved each other. (SICFF 2022)

An experimental animation created by a 10 year old kid. The start of the film was to create an abstract animation about relation between brother and sister. Struggle between siblings may look as a war between two opposing factions, but thanks to language of abstraction it can be found more universal. (SICFF 2022)

Audience Award

So-young, a single mother who raises a nine-year-old daughter Bandi, blames herself for not being able to fix Bandi’s stuttering. Thinking that absence of her husband is one of the reasons for her daughter’s disfluency, So-young decides to tell her daughter a story of Wonseok, Bandi’s father— for the first time in their lives. (SICFF 2022)

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SICFF Awards

Kid of the Year

Park So-I

Producer of the Year

Jeong Sang-min

Director of the Year

Jeon Seung-bae

Jury Special Mention Award

Shortly after her father passes away, Jiho’s missing sister comes back after 15 years. Now Jiho, along with her mother and her sister, travels all over Seoul to take down the missing person banners her family had put up. (SICFF 2022)

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