One of the most prominent figures in the new Korean cinema, Lee Chang-dong (b. 1954) is a director and novelist who works at the intersection of intimate storytelling and historical vertigo. Poetry (2010) and Burning (2018) are perhaps his best-known films in Portugal: the former tells the story of a woman in her sixties who must compose a poem at a stage in her life when the beauty of the world seems to be slipping away from her; the latter is a loose adaptation of a short story by Murakami, unfolding as a mystery with faint Faulknerian undertones. More broadly, the South Korean filmmaker’s entire body of work can be viewed as a world of isolated characters grappling with desire, grief, or social inequality. Opening this retrospective, and premiering at LEFFEST — in what will be its only theatrical screening in Portugal — is his latest film, Possible Love, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.