With BIFF opener ‘The Table: Day and Night,’ small moments stir big thoughts on life

BUSAN — “The Table: Day and Night” opens the 31st Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), one of Asia’s largest showcases for cinema — and, by nature, a spectacle built around stories. Kim Jong-kwan’s anthology of conversations turns to the smaller moments behind them: “the small and seemingly insignificant" that can add up to something larger.

The movie, starring actors including Kim Min-ha, Shim Eun-kyung, Lee Hee-jun and Han Sun-hwa, focuses on the interactions of four pairs of people in the same cafe. Across scenes set in the day and night, they talk about work, aspirations, hobbies and relationships over hand-drip coffee and glasses of draft beer.

“Through each conversation — a single slice of their lives — I wanted audiences to look more closely and imagine where these people came from, where they might be headed and everything beyond what is shown," Kim said following a press screening at the Busan on Tuesday, ahead of its official premiere at the BIFF opening ceremony.

Kim Min-ha, who plays a woman whose dreams lead her on a moonlit walk that becomes part of another man’s reality, said the film felt like a “gift” that made her think more about “small moments of happiness” and “little ripples.”

“So many stories pass through the same space […] and when they come together, they can become a letter, a novel, a film — even a much larger wave,” Kim said. “Watching the film made me think that perhaps I, and many others, have been too quick to regard only big events as stories.”

Director Kim is no stranger to anthologies, or short-form narratives. He directed “Walking at Night,” one of four segments in Netflix’s IU-led “Persona” (2019), and his earlier works include the short film “How to Operate a Polaroid Camera” (2004) and the 11-part anthology “Lovers” (2008). His 2017 film “The Table” similarly followed four encounters, unfolding around one table in a cafe.

To get a sense of what unites the four main stories in "The Table: Day and Night," he said, look to its title. By day, people converse in sign language in a sunlit cafe. By night, a kiss is stolen in the dark.

“There are many ways [day and night] work as a metaphor," he said. "In the first story, one person is in the day and the other is in the night, but they are still connected […] In the final episode, two people who had been in the same space become each other’s day and night [after they break up].”

That sense of contrast and connection runs throughout the film, the director added.

“Day and night may seem completely different and separate, but they exist in the same space, so ultimately, they are connected,” he said. “I also hoped this could be a film about understanding other people.”

One of the film’s other themes, the director said, is illusion. Though the conversations are grounded in seemingly mundane encounters, each carries a slightly surreal edge.

The first episode follows a pair whose strange dreams begin to overlap. In the second, a woman grows increasingly erratic, leaving it unclear whether she is driven by delusion or deeply held belief.

“The dream in the first episode, and what in the second might be a delusion or a belief […] are all forms of illusion,” he said.

“When we create something, we basically draw on reality, but that reality becomes transformed,” the director added. “An uncertain future is also a kind of illusion […] But those illusions are ultimately grounded in reality.”

This year’s BIFF runs through Oct. 15 in Busan, with 247 official selections from 59 countries — its largest lineup since 2019, according to organizers.

It is the first edition held since BIFF received “A-list” accreditation from the International Federation of Film Producers Associations, putting it in the same category as major festivals such as Cannes, Venice and Berlin. 

It also marks the first year since the Competition section launched in 2025 that its winner will be eligible for submission to the Academy Awards’ Best International Feature Film category.

BY KIM JU-YEON [[email protected]]