Oldboy director’s iPhone-made short film getting theatrical release

Film Business Asia reports that South Korea’s Finecut will handle international distribution for the short film Night Fishing, which was recently shot on an iPhone 4 by Oldboy director Park Chan-wook (Thirst, Joint Security Area) and his brother Park Chan-kyong.

Night Fishing has been released in a limited number of Korean cinemas by Innocean Worldwide, Hyundai Motor’s in-house creative agency.

According to the report, several short films have been made using camera phones and Korea even held an iPhone 4 film festival in October, however Night Fishing is the first to receive a theatrical release in the country. International distributors will get to see the film during Berlin’s short film competition section.

The 33-minute mostly black-and-white film centers on a fisherman who encounters a female shaman and goes from this life to the next. Night Fishing stars Oh Kwang-rok and actress-singer Lee Jung-hyun (A Petal). It was made with regular film equipment, but substituted eight different phones with various lens attachments for conventional movie cameras, and cost $133,000.