10 Must-see feature films from the 28th Seoul International Women’s Film Festival 2026

By Asian Film Festival on August 20, 2026 • ( Leave a comment )

These are ten feature films you shouldn’t miss at the Seoul International Women’s Film Festival (South Korea) which will take place from August 20 – 26, 2026.

Akashi by Yoshida Mayumi – Canada, Japan | 2025 – 100 minutes | Asian Premiere
Section: Discovery

Akashi is a multigenerational coming-of-age love story told across parallel timelines. In the present, Kana, a struggling artist in Vancouver, flies back to Tokyo for her grandmother’s funeral. It has been ten years since she moved to Canada, and she feels out of place in her old home, caught between family expectations—her mother urging her to give up her dream and return home—and her own desires. While there, she unexpectedly reconnects with an old love, Hiro, rekindling feelings and tempting her to consider giving up her career to settle down with him. As Kana prepares for the funeral, she reflects on a secret her grandmother once shared with her: grandfather had another lover throughout his marriage. Kana’s present-day story intercuts with the past, revealing her grandfather’s decades-long affair with Wakako, the woman he loved in silence. The past and present collide when Kana tracks down Wakako in the present. Through this encounter, along with her renewed connection with Hiro, Kana confronts her grandfather’s hidden truths and reflects on her own choices about love, sacrifice, and artistic purpose. (SIWFF 2026)

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Cooking Up Democracy by Monika Treut – Taiwan, Germany | 2026 – 83 minutes | Asian Premiere
Section: New Currents

While democracies around the world are under pressure, Taiwan stands out for its resilience against China’s digital autocracy. Guided by former Digital Minister and laureate of the Alternative Nobel Prize 2025 Audrey Tang, the film explores a vibrant activist scene where queer voices, feminist thinkers, and grassroots innovators shape a pluralistic vision of democracy. Among them: Zo and Tiffany at their herbal teahouse Grassland, Tong and his lesbian mother at the LGBTQ+ group Hotline, Brian and Yo-Ling at Daybreak, and Yi-Chien and Shu-Wen, who fight for gender equality and marriage rights. Together, they reveal what sustains Taiwan’s democratic spirit. (SIWFF 2026)

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En Route To by Yoo Jaein – South Korea | 2025 – 105 minutes
Section: Korean Panorama, Here & Now

At a small girls’ high school on the outskirts of Gyeonggi Province, an ordinary day begins—until the homeroom teacher fails to show up.While the other students brush it off, Yun-ji, a loner, is quietly shaken. She has been secretly dating her teacher, Jong-sung, to whom she recently confessed her pregnancy. Since then, he has vanished.When Jong-sung’s wife, Min-young, storms into the classroom, Yun-ji sneaks out of school to purchase illegal abortion pills. Yun-ji’s roommate Kyung-sun is a savvy, street-smart vape seller, saving every penny for her dream of a working holiday in Australia. But after returning to their dorm room one evening, she opens her cash box to find a note from Yun-ji instead of the money she carefully saved.Activating her network, Kyung-sun begins tracing Yun-ji’s steps—only to stumble upon truths she never wanted to know.Yun-ji insists she’ll pay her back once the teacher returns. But will Kyung-sun ever get her money back? (SIWFF 2026)

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Grounding by Ma Minji – South Korea | 2025 – 107 minutes
Section: Korean Panorama, Here & Now

Tak, who brought to light sexual violence cases in the publishing company and literary scene, struggles to rebuild her life in the aftermath of #MeToo. Waking up, eating, washing, and stepping outside are daily acts charged with constant tension and a battle against herself. The ground she stands on is Sang-yeoja’s Grounding Tactic—an art collective created by survivors and allies. Each week, they gather in a safe space to share snacks, voice their anger toward returning perpetrators, and weep and laugh together. They also run art programs for sexual violence survivors and allies, expanding their shared safe haven. But this community, too, is far from perfect. Expectations clash, wounds surface, and relationships crack. Over the past five years, the film follows their efforts to keep speaking, moving, and reconnecting within these imperfect bonds. Tak and the members practice their own grounding at their own pace, tracing the slow, uneven ridgeline of recovery. (SIWFF 2026)

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Linka Linka by Kangdrun – China | 2025 – 100 minutes | Korean Premiere
Section: Discovery

Samgyi returns to Lhasa to shoot a film about her childhood. Struggling with creative uncertainty, she finds herself in an endless cycle of arguments with her father. At a chance party, she meets Lhamo, the girl who inspired the character in her story. As the night quietly slips away, the summer that once lingered in fragments of memory gradually comes into full view…(SIWFF 2026)

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The Mutation by Shin Su-won – South Korea | 2025 – 108 minutes
Section: Korean Panorama, Here & Now

After collapsing from overwork, Seo spends all the money he has on designer clothes and a luxury suitcase, determined to leave on a journey. Sora, still devastated by the death of the person she loved, decides to join Seo. Together, they set off on a special journey. (SIWFF 2026)

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There Are No Words by Lee Minsook – Canada | 2025 – 99 minutes
Section: New Currents

Award-winning filmmaker Min Sook Lee turns the camera on herself in this urgent documentary, searching for memories of her mother, Song Ji Lee, who died by suicide when Lee was just 12 years old. Confrontational and speculative, There Are No Words contemplates how trauma fractures memory as Lee revisits the people and places of her childhood in Toronto, Canada, and Hwasun, South Korea, her place of birth. A looming figure in this search is Lee’s now 90-year-old father, who met her mother while serving in a national intelligence agency under dictator Park Chung Hee in 1960s South Korea. He is her last direct connection to her mother, although he’s an unreliable narrator with a history of abuse who speaks in a mother tongue she cannot fully understand. Through a fabric of real and imagined histories, Lee reveals that some stories must still be told, even when there are no words for grief. (SIWFF 2026)

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Trophy by Son Myong A – Japan | 2026 – 102 minutes
Section: Japanese Women’s Cinema – Generations and Gazes

So-hee sells something precious to attend a K-pop idol concert. A medal from her father’s homeland, North Korea, which he had always cherished. A story of Sohee, a young Zainichi Korean girl caught between family, friends, and Korean traditional dance. (SIWFF 2026)

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Water Deer by Yu Soyoung – South Korea | 2026 – 89 minutes
Section: Korean Panorama, Here& Now

Gongsoon is a name improvised by the village head when her deaf parents did not register her birth. He came up with it on the spot by quickly pronouncing “Goheung,” her mother’s hometown, and that became her name. Once used as a derogatory term for female factory workers, Gongsoon is the name she has lived with ever since. Gongsoon spent many years hanging wallpaper and laying flooring at construction sites. As her daughter, I was uncomfortable with the name. After returning to my hometown in my thirties, I began following my mother’s work with a camera. This filming continued over several years. We worked together and spent time side by side. The film captures sweating bodies at work, the repetitive movements of hands, and the quiet passage of ordinary days. I cannot say that making this film helped me understand my mother better. But it allowed me to look at her a little longer than before. Water Deer is a record of the time that grew from those moments.

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Yongjugol by Hong Jeeyeon – South Korea | 2026 – 77 minutes | World Premiere
Section: Discovery

The film begins with a belief: prostitution should disappear. It then turns to Yongjugol, a red-light district in Paju, where the closure of the area has sparked protests. Who are the people opposing its closure? Beyond familiar images of “crime scenes” and “brainwashed victims,” Yongjugol is home to many different lives. Sex workers, activists, queer people, people living with mental illness, and other marginalized communities gather to declare that “life cannot be shut down.” Even as they chant the same slogan, they remain strangers to one another. They resist easy definitions, and so do the relationships they form. As connections emerge, they develop their own strategies for protecting their lives from their respective positions. Their struggle invites us to reconsider the realities behind policies that seek to close red-light districts in the name of “women’s rights.”

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