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The Troubled Troubadour

Two middle-aged Japanese men, a hubristic musician and his stoic companion, travel aboard a wheeled canoe on abandoned train tracks along the Southern coast of Korea. They fall into an ambush set by a tribe of wild Korean children, who mistake the musician for their long-awaited Mountain God.

  • Forest Ian ETSLER
    Director
    One-minded
  • Sébastien SIMON
    Director
    One-minded
  • Forest Ian ETSLER
    Writer
    One-minded
  • Sébastien SIMON
    Writer
    One-minded
  • Forest Ian ETSLER
    Producer
    One-minded
  • Sébastien SIMON
    Producer
    One-minded
  • Hachi KASUGA
    Key Cast
  • Tetsu KONO
    Key Cast
  • LEE Hwajin
    Key Cast
  • KANG Saneh
    Key Cast
  • Hachi KASUGA
    Music
  • Clément CHARDON
    Music
  • CHOI Seongho
    Director of photography
  • PARK Hyunwoo
    Camera assistant
  • HEO Sejun
    Data wrangler
  • CHOI Jaewon
    Sound recording
  • Yann KERLOC'H
    Sound recording
  • JUN Younghwan
    Boom operator
  • Line Sangah OSHIN
    Art direction
  • HU Siyu
    Art direction
  • Ikram BENCHRIF
    Art direction
  • KIM Nakyoung
    Art direction
  • Haixiao "Tsunami" DU
    Conceptual art
  • Jérôme METTLING
    Visual effets
  • Rui FIGUEIREDO
    Visual effets
  • KIM Geon
    Visual effets
  • Andrew CHUNG
    Visual effets
  • KIM Byungjune
    Production team
  • HEO Jemin
    Production team
  • KIM Dongbaek
    Production team
  • KIM Yeseul
    Production team
  • Thomas GUITARD
    Sound mixing
  • Project Type:
    Short, Student
  • Genres:
    Fable, Adventure, Road-movie, Western, Fantastic
  • Runtime:
    23 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    December 20, 2016
  • Production Budget:
    7,500 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Korea, Republic of
  • Country of Filming:
    Korea, Republic of
  • Language:
    English, Japanese, Korean
  • Shooting Format:
    4k
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Black & White and Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes - Dongguk University, Seoul
  • 42nd Seoul Independent Film Festival
    Seoul
    Korea, Republic of
    December 2, 2016
    Korean premiere
  • 16th Mise-en-scene Short Film Festival
    Seoul
    Korea, Republic of
    June 25, 2017
  • 7th Pineapple Underground Film Festival
    Hong Kong
    Hong Kong
    June 15, 2017
    Hong Kong premiere
  • 5th La Guarimba International Film Festival
    Amantea
    Italy
    August 7, 2017
    Italian premiere
  • 13th Jecheon International Music & Film Festival
    Jecheon
    Korea, Republic of
    May 11, 2017
  • 5th Seoul Migrant Art Festival
    Seoul
    Korea, Republic of
    September 9, 2017
  • 6th Chaktomuk Short Film Festival
    Phnom Penh
    Cambodia
    October 26, 2017
    Cambodian premiere
  • 17th Jeonbuk Independent Film Festival
    Jeonju
    Korea, Republic of
    November 4, 2017
    Jeonju premiere
  • 18th Izmir International Short Film Festival
    Izmir
    Turkey
    November 7, 2017
    Turkish premiere
  • 5th On the Road Film Festival
    Rome
    Italy
    November 15, 2017
    Rome premiere
  • 5th Salamindanaw Asian Film Festival
    General Santos
    Philippines
    November 30, 2017
    Philippines premiere
  • 3rd Gosichon Short Film Festival
    Seoul
    Korea, Republic of
    November 25, 2017
  • 16th Film Festival Dokumenter
    Yogyakarta
    Indonesia
    December 9, 2017
    Indonesian premiere
  • 11th Küstendorf International Film & Music Festival
    Mećavnik
    Serbia
    January 16, 2018
    Serbian premiere
  • 24th Slamdance Film Festival
    Park City
    United States
    December 20, 2017
    North American premiere
  • 36th International Film Festival of Uruguay
    Montevideo
    Uruguay
    April 10, 2018
    South American premiere
    Panorama Cortometrajes Internacionales
  • 36th CAAMFest
    San Francisco
    United States
    May 11, 2018
    California premiere
  • 14th Fantaspoa International Fantastic Film Festival
    Porto Alegre
    Brazil
    May 18, 2018
    Brazilian premiere
  • Minikino Monthly Screening & Discussion
    Bali
    Indonesia
    August 1, 2018
  • 4th Korea International Expat Film Festival
    Seoul
    Korea, Republic of
    September 7, 2018
    Best Expat Short
  • 2nd Asia Peace Film Festival
    Islamabad
    Pakistan
    December 11, 2018
    Pakistan premiere
  • 29th Petitcinefest
    Busan
    Korea, Republic of
    July 3, 2019
  • 1st Gandhara Independent Film Festival
    Karachi
    Pakistan
    October 17, 2020
  • 1st CineGo Shorts 'Music On The Move'
    Karachi
    Pakistan
    June 20, 2021
  • 1st One World One Flower International Buddhist Film Festival
    Seoul
    Korea, Republic of
    August 28, 2021
  • 1st Nolita Festival
    Busan
    Korea, Republic of
    August 20, 2022
  • 5th Jeonju International Short Film Festival
    Jeonju
    Korea, Republic of
    October 1, 2022
  • 5th Meihodo International Youth Visual Media Festival
    Fukuoka
    Japan
    April 19, 2023
    Japan premiere
  • 8th Dehradun International Film Festival
    Dehradun
    India
    September 24, 2023
    Indian premiere
Director Biography - Forest Ian ETSLER, Sébastien SIMON

Born in 1982 in the US, Forest Ian Etsler first came to South Korea in 2005 as a Fulbright Grantee to teach English until he recently turned his focus to film. In August 2016, he got an MFA in film directing at Dongguk University in Seoul as part of the Korean Government Scholarship Program. He also works as director of East-Asia programming for the Middle Coast Film Festival in Bloomington, Indiana.

Born in 1983 in France, Sébastien Simon is a graduate from the ESEC film school and from Université Paris 1 - Panthéon Sorbonne. An editor since 2005 and a nomadic director since 2011, he also collaborates with several festivals in Korea (Busan International Short Film Festival, Seoul International Extreme-Short Image & Film Festival, Jeju French Film Festival) and he supervises a short-filmmaking workshop for the Rencontres Cinématographiques de Cavaillon in France.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

"The Troubled Troubadour" belongs to the road movie genre but it also carries elements of comedy, fantasy, western and allegory. Structured along three movements (going nowhere, having noone, being nothing), the movie borrows from several belief systems, mythologies and legends: Greek (Charon and the Styx), Norse (boat funeral), Germanic (the Pied Piper from Hamelin), Korean shamanism (the Mountain God, The Five Directions God), Korean buddhism (the monk Wonhyo drinking from a human skull) and American blues (Robert Johnson, the devil at the crossroads). The use of these local myths enhances the lyrical, poetic tone of this peculiar yet timeless story about a man confronting his own death.