Busan 2022: IU “Broker” Q&A and Open Talk photos

Actress Lee Ji-eun (better known by her stage name as a singer, IU) appeared at the Oct. 7 screening of “Broker” alongside Lee Joo-young, Song Kang-ho, and director Hirokazu Kore-eda at the 2022 Busan International Film Festival. She also appeared the next day with Lee Joo-young and Kore-eda at an “Open Talk” session. Fans of her work as a singer enthusiastically cheered at both events, and some of them brought lightsticks.

“Broker” focuses on an unwed mother, played by IU, who leaves her newborn infant in what is known as a “baby box.” Such boxes first appeared in Korea in 2009, when a pastor decided to set one up at his church as an alternative to abandoning babies through other means. In “Broker,” Lee plays one of the two cops tracking Song runs a laundromat but carries out a shady business on the side – along with Gang Dong-won’s character – at a church accepting such infants, then making money by selling them. Kore-eda cast IU in “Broker” after watching her in the Korean television drama My Mister.