Parasite

CELEBRATING 30 YEARS OF NOVA! Cinema Nova has a long affinity with director Bong Joon Ho, having screened The Host upon its release in 2006 as well as exclusively releasing follow-ups Mother and Snowpiercer in Melbourne in 2009 and 2013, respectively. Ahead of PARASITE’s debut at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, little was known about the psychodrama besides it reteaming the filmmaker with star Song Kang-ho (The Host, Snowpiercer). Premiering to acclaim at the French event, the Cinema Nova team viewed the film a mere six days after winning the Palme d’Or, with the Australian release scheduled less than a month later due to piracy concerns. “I can remember coming out of our screening and knowing it was going to be a major film for Cinema Nova,” recalls CEO KC, “but I never could have imagined that it would become the cinema’s biggest film of all time.” Screening from late June 2019 all the way through to the March 2020 nationwide cinema closures, the film went on to win Best Picture on the same weekend it became Cinema Nova’s most popular film of all time. Had it not been for the virus that shall not be named, it would have played non-stop for over a year, given it was still close to the top of our weekly ranking in month nine. So much for piracy… When cinemas reopened later in 2020, PARASITE returned to the screen alongside director Bong’s under-screened 2003 breakout feature Memories Of Murder, which soon became one of the cinema’s biggest post-lockdown hits.

Winner of a historic four Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, and the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival – PARASITE confirms director Bong Joon Ho's position as one of the world’s most inventive and captivating filmmakers. Ki-Taek (Song Kang-Ho, The Host) and his family are living meal-to-meal in the slums of South Korea. Making ends meet by folding pizza boxes, Ki-Taek's son Ki-Woo (Choi Woo-shik) is offered the chance to tutor the young daughter of a wealthy family. Ingratiating himself into the home of Mr and Mrs Park, Ki-Woo quickly engineers the employment of his sister as a tutor for the family's young son. This sets off a chain of events that brings together the two families in an unexpected and sinister way.

Korean language, English subtitles.