This is the first time we’re screening a film by Hong Sangsoo, a director we’ve long admired. His work rarely gets UK distribution, and we’re excited to share this quietly comic gem with a Bristol audience.

Donghwa, a thirty-something poet, drops his girlfriend Junhee home and lingers to admire her family's house. What starts as a quick goodbye stretches into an unexpected day of awkward hospitality—homemade chicken stew, a temple visit, and one too many drinks later, Donghwa’s charm begins to unravel.

A quiet comedy of discomfort, simmering tensions, and soft missteps, What Does the Nature Say? offers a gently funny, deceptively simple window into the rhythms of relationships and regret.

Hong Sangsoo is one of contemporary cinema’s most distinctive voices. With playful, compact stories and a style that embraces repetition, sudden zooms, and philosophical digressions, his films feel both slight and rich—each one part of a larger, evolving whole. Often focused on artists, lovers, and the blurry line between fiction and life, his work is acclaimed internationally but still underseen in UK cinemas.