Animated short THE WAVES also invited

Director Ryoo Seung-wan's new crime action thriller Smugglers has been invited to the 76th Locarno Film Festival set to open in Switzerland next month, the festival's homepage showed Thursday. 

Smugglers was included in the main Piazza Grande lineup for Europe's biggest midsummer movie event slated for Aug. 2-12, according to the festival. The Piazza Grande section screens audience-friendly films in an outdoor square that can accommodate over 8,000 viewers, featuring the Audience Award and the Variety Piazza Grande Award selected by a panel of film critics.

Set in the 1970s in a peaceful seaside village, "Smugglers" revolves around two female divers (played by Kim Hye-soo and Yum Jung-ah), who are unexpectedly tangled up in a high-stakes smuggling scheme. It is set to hit local theaters July 26.

 A promotional poster of Ryoo Seung-wan's crime action thriller "Smugglers" is seen in this photo provided by the distributor NEW. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

Director Joung Yu-mi's animated short film The Waves was invited to Pardi di domani, Locarno's short film competition, internazionale section, competing for the Pardo d'oro, an award for outstanding achievement in cinema. It is her third animation project presented to international film festivals, following Dust Kid (2009) for Cannes Directors' Fortnight and Math Test (2010) for the Berlin International Film Festival.

A scene from Joung Yu-mi's new animation, "The Waves," is seen in this image captured from the Locarno Film Festival's homepage. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) 

By Kim Eun-jung