Film critic Dogyeong (Gi Doyeong) belatedly learns of an old friend’s death. As it happens, this comes not long after the demolition of an old theater in Gangwon Province. Somehow, the two events do not feel all that different to her. As her work as a critic takes her from place to place, Dogyeong searches for her late friend’s short film and visits theaters and screening spaces where it might once have been shown. Things I Left at the Theater is an assured new work from Park Kun-young, who has thoughtfully and earnestly portrayed profound loss and the time that follows it. Cinema as a material form and a value that have been lost and rendered obsolete; the theater as both place and memory; the layers of time imperceptibly inscribed in and absorbed by it - Dogyeong is driven by a deep respect and profound longing for this immaterial history, and that same impulse carries the film forward. In a way possible through cinema and cinema alone, the film summons back into being those who have vanished. (JEONG Jihye)