Next Sohee

"She's dancing when we first see her. Wearing headphones. We can't hear the music but we can see her response to it, the energy in her movements, the passion. She's good – the best in the group, its other members will later agree. She's full of life, but by the halfway point in July Jung's incisive and devastating film, she will be dead" - so starts Jennie Kermode's review in Eye for Film.

Sohee is a bright high school pupil, studying pet care when her school work-experience teacher gets her a 'plumb' job working in a call centre. She takes the job with enthusiasm, but is soon worn down by the high pressure and lack of support, gradually crushing her spirit until she can take it no more...

Detective Oh Yoo-jin is brought in to find out what happened, but with opposition from all sides. She begins to realise that Sohee is not an isolated case, but a feature of the system...Kim Si-Eun plays Sohee, Oh is played by Bae Doona, who also played a police officer in Jung's previous film 'A Girl at My Door', which we showed in 2015; both get great reviews. Jennie Kermode finishes with "There's a real sense of fury behind this film... The problem at its core is systemic but Jung makes a strong case to the effect that it must be addressed with the same vigour as one would expect if individuals were causing equivalent harm. Sohee is broken to the point where she cannot see any hope. Oh likewise makes some bleak discoveries, but her attitude – as someone older with a stronger sense of possibility – is very different. Next Sohee speaks for people who do not have a voice, and it does so eloquently".