Jang Gi-ha to World-Premiere His First Album as a Film

After 24 years of making music, singer-songwriter Jang Gi-ha has finally completed his first solo full-length album — and he is choosing to introduce it to the world not through a listening party, not through a digital drop, but as a short film screened at one of Korea's most prestigious independent film festivals.

Jang's label, Duru Duru Artist Company, announced that the musician's debut solo studio album, titled Sansanjogak (산산조각, "Shattered to Pieces"), will receive its global premiere at the 27th Jeonju International Film Festival this coming May. Three consecutive screenings — May 1, 2, and 3, one per day — will offer audiences a first encounter with the album presented in the form of a short film. The full album is scheduled for commercial release in September 2026.

An Album That Thinks Like a Film

The choice of format is not arbitrary. According to Jang Gi-ha, the conceptual process behind Sansanjogak moved through three distinct phases: poetry, then silent cinema, then music. The resulting album is designed to have the same total runtime as a short film — a structural decision that makes the Jeonju premiere feel less like a promotional stunt and more like the most natural way the project could first be heard.

Jang Gi-ha has been one of the defining figures of Korean indie music for over two decades. As the frontman and creative center of Jang Gi-ha and the Faces (장기하와 얼굴들), he helped establish a sound and an aesthetic sensibility that influenced a generation of Korean independent musicians. The band was known for its dry wit, unconventional arrangements, and a mode of storytelling that treated everyday Korean life with deadpan poetry. The group officially disbanded in 2019, after which Jang has largely worked outside of music — until now.

The fact that Sansanjogak will debut inside a cinema rather than a streaming platform says something about how seriously Jang is treating this return. He is not slipping back into the music industry quietly. He is making an event of it, at a festival that has spent 27 years championing exactly the kind of art that refuses easy categories.

The 27th Jeonju International Film Festival

The Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF) opens on April 29 and runs through May 8, 2026 — ten days across Jeonju's Cinema Street and multiple venues throughout the city. Now in its 27th year, JIFF has established itself as one of Asia's most important platforms for independent and art-house cinema, operating with a commitment to films that challenge audiences rather than simply entertain them.

This year's edition brings 237 films from 54 countries. The scale reflects both the festival's international standing and its curatorial ambition — a full decade's worth of programming compressed into just over a week.

The opening film is My Private Artist by American director Kent Jones, a title that aligns with the festival's longtime emphasis on subjective, personal filmmaking. The closing film is Namtaeryeong (남태령), directed by Kim Hyun-ji — who previously made Grown-up Kim Jang-ha — a documentary capturing citizen resistance during a pivotal moment in recent Korean history. Both films point to a curatorial vision that takes seriously the relationship between art and social reality.

Shin Hyun-joon and Go Youn-hee as MCs

The opening ceremony will be hosted by actors Shin Hyun-joon and Go Youn-hee — a pairing that brings both veteran gravitas and fresh energy to the stage. Shin, who debuted in 1990 with the film The General's Son and has since built one of Korean entertainment's most versatile careers across film, drama, and variety, brings three decades of industry credibility to the role. Go Youn-hee, whose notable performances in films like Innocent Witness and Merry Christmas Mr. Mo have established her as one of Korean cinema's most watchable actors, brings a more contemporary profile.

Together, they represent the kind of cross-generational combination that a 27-year-old festival, balancing its history with its present, might naturally gravitate toward.

A Closing Film That Reflects the Moment

The selection of Namtaeryeong as this year's closing film is significant. The documentary is described as a digital archive film capturing citizens who gathered at Nam-taeryeong during one of Korea's most dramatic political nights in recent memory. Director Kim Hyun-ji approaches the material with the same warm, humanizing eye she brought to her previous documentary work — focusing on individual people, small gestures of solidarity (hand warmers passed through crowds, kimbap shared among strangers), and the texture of collective experience in a moment of uncertainty.

The film's confirmed May theatrical release follows its festival premiere, suggesting that its story — about ordinary people in an extraordinary moment — has found an audience beyond the festival circuit.

Tickets and How to Attend

General ticket sales for JIFF 2026 opened on April 17 through the festival's official website. Opening and closing ceremony tickets became available earlier, on April 15. Tickets are priced at 10,000 won for standard screenings and 12,000 won for special event screenings. The festival is operating on an online-first ticketing model, with in-person box office access only for remaining seats during the festival period.

Jeonju, located approximately 200 kilometers south of Seoul, is a city with deep cultural roots in Korean history and cuisine — making the festival experience part of a broader visit to one of Korea's most historically rich destinations.

Why This Edition Matters

There is something fitting about the 27th Jeonju International Film Festival opening with an American director's personal meditation on artistry and closing with a Korean director's documentary about collective civic action. Between those two poles, 237 films from 54 countries will play, alongside a musician who spent 24 years making records with a band before finally writing something entirely his own.

Each of these stories, in its own way, is about the relationship between individual voice and larger context. That is, in the end, what festivals like Jeonju exist to make room for.

The 27th Jeonju International Film Festival runs April 29 – May 8, 2026. Tickets are available at the official JIFF website.