Beauty Water
As a chubby woman, Yaeji is used to everyone making fun of her. But after being publicly shamed on social media, she resorts to desperate measures: She lets herself be talked into a risky treatment with the titular Beauty Water. Now, she fits the beauty ideal to a T and becomes a supermodel, at least until the side effects kick in. Kyung-hun Cho’s first animated feature is a biting commentary on people’s obsession with looks in South Korea and elsewhere, packaged as a juicy body-horror piece on the inexhaustible topic of appearances and reality in a world both digital and analog.
OPENER
BAD HAIR
Oskar Lehemaa | EST 2019 | 14′ | no dialogue
Insecure and balding Leo has closed himself in his apartment to try hair growth liquid for fixing up his looks. The liquid causes a series of grotesque metamorphoses with his skin and hair and the evening quickly turns into chaos.
graduated from Yonsei University in business administration. He directed the short animations Constipation (1996), Hungry (2000), and Revenge impossible 2 (2001). After that, he founded a production company, Studio Animal, where he managed various projects as a director and producer. His best-known titles produced at Studio Animal are Medical Island (2003), Ghost Messenger (2010), and Hanging On! (2014). Beauty Water is his first directed feature animation.
