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‘Fighting an impossible fight is the only way to reclaim dignity’: Lee Chang-dong on class warfare and his searing Oscar contender

The auteur’s new film – a study of labour, capital and the fallout of redundancy – won the grand jury prize at Venice. Telling tales of the disenfranchised is ‘our moral responsibility’, he says A quintessential 21st-century horror story: a private equity firm has set its sights on your company. That’s the premise behind director Lee Chang-dong’s new film, Possible Love, and the idea for it first came more than a decade ago, when mass layoffs resulted in a standoff that “fundamentally changed the Korean labour movement”. In 2009, workers at Ssangyong Motors company protested against plans to lay off between 37 and 43% of the workforce, staging a historic 77-day strike and occupation of the factory that was eventually broken up by riot police. “Until that point in time in Korea, labourers’ rights were widely accepted,” Lee says, speaking through an interpreter in a central Londo

Image from linked report: ‘Fighting an impossible fight is the only way to reclaim dignity’: Lee Chang-dong on class warfare and his searing Oscar contender
Image from the linked report: ‘Fighting an impossible fight is the only way to reclaim dignity’: Lee Chang-dong on class warfare and his searing Oscar contender.Credit: The Guardian Thumbnail shown with attribution and outbound source link; VINI does not claim ownership or republish the original article body. Image source External image shown with attribution and an outbound source link; VINI does not claim ownership or republish the original article body.
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The auteur’s new film – a study of labour, capital and the fallout of redundancy – won the grand jury prize at Venice. Telling tales of the disenfranchised is ‘our moral responsibility’, he says A quintessential 21st-century horror story: a private equity firm has set its sights on your company. That’s the premise behind director Lee Chang-dong’s new film, Possible Love, and the idea for it first came more than a decade ago, when mass layoffs resulted in a standoff that “fundamentally changed the Korean labour movement”. In 2009, workers at Ssangyong Motors company protested against plans to lay off between 37 and 43% of the workforce, staging a historic 77-day strike and occupation of the factory that was eventually broken up by riot police. “Until that point in time in Korea, labourers’ rights were widely accepted,” Lee says, speaking through an interpreter in a central Londo

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According to The Guardian’s source item, ‘Fighting an impossible fight is the only way to reclaim dignity’: Lee Chang-dong on class warfare and his searing Oscar contender, The auteur’s new film – a study of labour, capital and the fallout of redundancy – won the grand jury prize at Venice. Telling tales of the disenfranchised is ‘our moral responsibility’, he says A quintessential 21st-century horror story: a private equity firm has set its sights on your company. That’s the premise behind director Lee Chang-dong’s new film, Possible Love, and the idea for it first came more than a decade ago, when mass layoffs resulted in a standoff that “fundamentally changed the Korean labour movement”. In 2009, workers at Ssangyong Motors company protested against plans to lay off between 37 and 43% of the workforce, staging a historic 77-day strike and occupation of the factory that was eventually broken up by riot police. “Until that point in time in Korea, labourers’ rights were widely accepted,” Lee says, speaking through an interpreter in a central Londo

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The development sits in VINI’s Technology file for readers following technology, science, product policy, markets, infrastructure, and the public consequences of innovation. The original report is linked so readers can check the source account, follow later updates, and compare new coverage against the first published record. The source item is dated 2026-10-23T12:00:25+00:00.

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Primary source: ‘Fighting an impossible fight is the only way to reclaim dignity’: Lee Chang-dong on class warfare and his searing Oscar contender via The Guardian. VINI cites and links the source; it does not reproduce the publisher’s full article text without rights clearance.

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