Aloners (2021) 

Gong Seungyeon has earned the Best Actress Award at this year’s Torino International Film Festival for her leading role in Hong Sungeun’s indie film Aloners.

Gong, who has been active in small roles since 2012, has seen her star rise in recent years before garnering huge acclaim for her role in the indie film Aloners. Her performance has earned her the Best Actor Award in the Korean Competition at the Jeonju International Film Festival, the Best New Actress Awards at this year’s Blue Dragon Film Award, and Korean Association of Film Critics Awards, as well as a nomination for Best Newcomer at the Asian Film Awards. She will be back on screens this month in the tvN drama Bulgasal: Immortal Souls.

In Aloners, she plays a young call center worker who excels at her job but shirks human interactions. She tries to avoid her father in the wake of her mother’s death and is frustrated to be assigned to train a new recruit.

Aloners is the debut film of director Hong Sungeun and had its world premiere at this year’s Jeonju International Film Festival. The film has been well received internationally, receiving invitations to several prestigious global film events, including the Toronto International Film Festival, San Sebastian International Film Festival, and Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, among others.

Other Korean awards winners at Torino have included Bong Joonho’s Memories of Murder (2003), which picked up the Best Screenplay and Audience Choice Award, and Park Heungsik’s The Railroad (2017), for which Kim Kangwoo earned the Best Actor Prize.