Hot in Day, Cold at Night (낮에는 덥고 밤에는 춥고)

The pitfalls of capitalism are mercilessly exposed in Hot in Day, Cold at Night by South Korean director Park Song-yeol. He himself plays a man who is recovering from a motorbike accident that has kept him unemployed for months. His partner (Wong Hyang-ra) has a job left and right in between studying for her diploma. The two have to fight to survive in a system that prefers to treat unlucky people as social waste. Moreover, they are scorned by those who are lucky. This becomes painfully clear when the two arrive at her mother's birthday party without a present. Park and Wong practically made this film on their own. They play the leads, wrote the screenplay together, edited the film, while Park also did the photography. Hot in Day, Cold at Night is a true no-budget film. With a touching, sobering story.

“An unemployed young couple spirals into ever-escalating economic precarity in Park Song-yeol’s gripping, frequently amusing, and expertly written moral tale, fueled by the desperation of contemporary lower-middle-class living. A work that is at once charming, empathetic, and satirical.” - Film at Lincoln Center