Pictured above: New film “The Ugly”, screening at the Korean Film Festival in Sydney for 2026
The Korean Film Festival is Back In Sydney for 2026, and we’re excited to share the lineup of 10 very exciting films from directors and actors you’ll already know from award-winning films, as well as fresh talent.
The 17th Korean Film Festival in Australia (KOFFIA) returns to Sydney from 20–25 August at Event Cinemas George Street, presenting a 10-film program featuring nine Australian premieres and five visiting guests, before a free touring program travels to five regional locations across the country.
Among the program’s biggest drawcards are The Ugly from director YEON Sang-ho, who put Korean genre cinema on Australian screens with Train to Busan; The Day She Returns, from Korea’s quietly prolific arthouse filmmaker HONG Sang-soo; and Project Y, a high-stakes neo-noir starring HAN So-hee and JUN Jong-seo as two women who steal illicit cash and hidden gold hoping to start over.
The Sydney program spans psychological thrillers, crime dramas, first love, heartfelt coming-of-age stories and intimate family dramas. The festival will also welcome actor KO Kyung-pyo, known for Reply 1988, who will join producer KANG Taeu for a post-screening Q&A following Maze. Directors KIM Do-young, LEE Hwan and KIM Jin-yu will also appear at selected screenings.
KOFFIA Programmer Inji Jung said, “Audiences expecting familiar K-drama tropes will be handed something far grander with our 2026 program. Throw expectation to the wind and see a gangster who would give anything not to become the next boss; a teenager who detonates her whole world with one careless sentence; or even a son who uncovers the secrets of his mother’s life decades after her passing. It’s here for you to see this August, and only at KOFFIA.”
Opening Night Film
Once We Were Us opens the festival in Sydney and travels to all five touring locations. Starring KOO Kyo-hwan and MUN Ka-young, it moves between Seoul in 2008 and a reunion more than a decade later, following two people whose friendship becomes an extraordinary love before adulthood pulls them apart. Director KIM Do-young will attend the Sydney screening for a Q&A.
Headliners
- The Ugly (YEON Sang-ho, Train to Busan, Colony): when the remains of a woman missing for forty years surface, her son starts investigating and finds the garment factory where she worked has been keeping secrets. Starring PARK Jeong-min and KWON Hae-hyo.
- The Day She Returns (HONG Sang-soo): the latest from the director of Right Now, Wrong Then is a minimalist drama about an actress returning to public life after years away, reenacting interviews for an acting class as memory, performance and reality blur.
- Project Y (LEE Hwan): HAN So-hee and JUN Jong-seo star as two women who steal illicit cash and hidden gold hoping to start over and become the targets of an unforgiving chase. Director LEE Hwan attends the Sydney screening.
- Maze: KO Kyung-pyo as a grieving husband hunting for someone to blame after his wife’s death, led by a private detective toward a truth he has spent years avoiding. KO Kyung-pyo and producer KANG Taeu attend the Sydney screening.
Also Screening in Sydney
- Boss: an action-comedy about a reluctant gangster who will do almost anything to avoid the top job, particularly once his preferred successor announces he’d rather be a tango dancer. With JO Woo-jin, JUNG Kyung-ho, PARK Ji-hwan and LEE Kyoo-hyung.
- You Are the Apple of My Eye: Jinyoung and Dahyun in a story of first loves that follows a high-school troublemaker and the model student assigned to keep him in line.
- The World of Love: an unpredictable 17-year-old’s impulsive words trigger a major incident and a flood of anonymous notes, cracking open the cheerful world she thought she knew.
- The Eyes: SHIN Min-a as a photographer losing her sight who refuses to accept her blind twin sister’s suicide, chasing cryptic artworks toward the truth before darkness closes in.
- Journey There: music, family and unexpected connection, as an older woman moving in near a hospital meets a conductor searching for his birth mother and an orphan who dreams of the piano. Director KIM Jin-yu attends the Sydney screening.
Tickets for Sydney are available now at www.koffia.com.au.
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