“Seoksoo-hyung. Didn’t you go to Taiwan?”

“I almost did, but no.”

“So that’s why you’re here.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have come.”

“Come on, don’t say that.”

Seoksoo sat down when his junior offered him a seat. His eyes were drawn to the poster on the wall.

2008 Short Film Festival — it had finally begun again this year.

“How many have you gotten this year?”

“About 670.”

“There’s a lot this year too.”

“It’s increasing every single year. Compared to ’01, it’s more than ten times the amount.”

“At this rate, it’ll go over a thousand.”

“I’m sure it will. The difficulty of filming has decreased a lot. There’s also a lot more freedom with the format, so there have been a lot of applications.”

“Have you finished classifying the competitive works?”

His junior nodded. “There were a lot of applicants for the ‘contemplation’ category. Maybe it was because of all the noisy news, but there’s a lot of focus on that area.”

“It’s not like there have been just a few accidents and events this year. It was a natural course that the fury of new directors was directed there.”

Current affairs, melo, comedy, thriller, fantasy — the Short Film Festival accepted works in five different categories. That was a result of accepting opinions from various directors, who said that a variety of genres needed attention.

“This has gotten...