LIM Hayeon / Korea / 2026 / 144min / Competition 

A train passes by in the distance, after which, the camera pans, lingering inside a busy restaurant and its busy patrons excitedly engaged in their respective drunken stories. The noise of the passing train and the illegible chatter gives way to a narrator who provides crucial context to the delicately mounted opening scene, that amidst the common tableau of human interaction, truth is never the point, just the story, just the fiction. In a matter of minutes, director Lim Ha-yeon signals the whirlwind of intersecting, intercepting and interrupting fictions that make her debut feature Beach Fictions such an intriguing piece notwithstanding its very modest ambitions. By dwelling into the chance encounters of Tae-ju (Park Han-sol), a literature student who flees the city after discovering scandalous stories about her, the film subtly dissets the persuasive inevitability of fiction in real life. Its characters are either consumers or are being consumed by stories, with Tae-ju unwittingly existing in one where the two possible fates of her heart are explored through a narrative structure taken out of the Hong Sang soo playbook. “Fiction just makes it all more interesting. Truth is so boring.” There is wisdom in the words of novelist Charlaine Harris. While clearly not boring, the truths offered by Beach Fictions is far less interesting than the subtle delights of its fictional protagonist’s maneuverings around and about her little world of gossip, fortune and the possible loves they afford. Lim’s debut is a trifle – a lovely piece of work that provides all the joys and insights about human relations from start to its protracted finish. Unfortunately, as soon as it ends, none of its characters or their fates or their longings or even the lessons their predicaments intend to impart dare to linger. The film, like the train in the opening, comes and goes, waiting for the next piece of fiction to take its place. Simply put, Beach Fictions is as tentative as all the stories it attempts to make sense of.