Yeom Hye-ran Film My Name Draws Berlin Applause

Yeom Hye-ran's film My Name has continued to build momentum after its Berlin International Film Festival premiere, where Korean reports described the audience response as warm and sustained. The Jung Ji-young-directed drama was invited to the Forum section of the 76th Berlinale and later drew fresh attention in Korea through festival coverage, a Berlinale vlog, and an April press event ahead of its domestic rollout.

The film is rooted in the Jeju April 3 Incident, but its story is framed through a family mystery rather than a conventional historical chronicle. It follows Yeong-ok, an 18-year-old who wants to shed a name he finds embarrassing, and his mother Jeong-sun, played by Yeom Hye-ran, as long-buried memories connected to Jeju in 1949 begin to surface. Shin Woo-bin plays Yeong-ok, with Park Ji-bin and Choi Joon-woo also appearing in the cast.

Berlin Response Put the Film on the Map

My Name was selected for the non-competitive Forum section of the 76th Berlin International Film Festival, giving the project an international platform before its Korean release. Reports ahead of the festival said director Jung Ji-young, Yeom Hye-ran, and Shin Woo-bin were scheduled to attend festival events, meet audiences after the screening, and speak with Korean and overseas media about the film's message.

After the premiere, SBS Entertainment News reported that the team's Berlinale vlog captured the red carpet, the packed premiere screening, and a post-screening response in which applause and cheers rose as the credits ended. The same report said a second-day screening sold out and that a meeting with Berlin's Korean community added another layer of meaning to the trip.

That reaction matters because My Name is not built around a familiar commercial hook. Its subject is painful, its emotional register is restrained, and its central question is how families carry history that has been suppressed or only partially spoken aloud. Berlin gave the film early proof that the story could travel beyond the specific local history that inspired it.

Why Yeom Hye-ran Became Central

One of the most discussed production stories around My Name concerns Yeom Hye-ran's involvement. Korean coverage of JTBC's Tokpawon 25si said Jung Ji-young revealed during a Berlin segment that he revised the screenplay after hearing Yeom's willingness to participate. That account helps explain why the film has been positioned so strongly around her performance.

Yeom plays Jeong-sun, a mother whose life is tied to memories of Jeju and to the unresolved pain that follows. At an April 2 press screening in Seoul, ChosunBiz's English report quoted Yeom explaining that she approached the role cautiously because the Jeju April 3 Incident was a real historical tragedy. She also said testimony collections from people who lived through the period helped her prepare.

For Yeom, the role arrives after years of acclaimed work across film, television, and streaming dramas. Many viewers know her from projects such as The Glory, Mask Girl, and When Life Gives You Tangerines, but My Name places her emotional presence at the center of a feature film built around memory, motherhood, and historical reckoning.

Jung Ji-young's Historical Lens

Director Jung Ji-young has long been associated with socially conscious Korean cinema, and My Name continues that trajectory. At the Seoul press event, he explained that he had been interested in Jeju April 3 for years but wanted to avoid retelling the subject through a familiar ideological frame. Instead, he found a way into the story through the idea of searching for a name.

The film also uses 1998 as an important period, connecting the present-tense family story with memories from 1949. Jung said this structure was meant to make audiences curious enough to look deeper into the history rather than presenting the incident only as a closed chapter of the past. He also spoke about violence as something inherited through communities and families, linking state violence with more ordinary forms of social cruelty.

That approach gives My Name a broader shape. It is a Jeju April 3 film, but it is also a story about how silence changes families, how names can carry shame or dignity, and how a person's identity can be shaped by events they did not fully understand when they were young.

Korean Release and Public Attention

The film's Korean release was set for April 15, 2026. Some earlier discussion around the project emphasized the symbolic weight of April 3, the anniversary date associated with the Jeju tragedy, and Jung later said the team had hoped for an April 3 opening but that final release timing depended on theaters and distributors.

Television coverage also broadened awareness of the film before release. JTBC's Tokpawon 25si previewed its Berlin International Film Festival segment with DAY6 member Young K and film commentator Baek Eun-ha appearing in the episode. The segment followed the Berlin festival atmosphere and included meetings with Jung Ji-young and Yeom Hye-ran.

For K-cinema audiences, My Name now carries two kinds of significance. It is a new work from a veteran filmmaker returning to difficult modern history, and it is a major leading showcase for Yeom Hye-ran, whose performance has become one of the film's clearest points of interest. The Berlin response does not by itself define the film's legacy, but it gives the release a stronger starting point than a small historical drama might otherwise receive.

A Performance Built Around Restraint

The strongest reason for the film's current attention is the way Yeom Hye-ran's role connects private memory with public history. The material asks the actress to suggest pain without turning every scene into a direct explanation of trauma. That restraint fits the film's broader strategy: it uses a mother-son relationship, a contested name, and the resurfacing of memory to make a large historical subject legible through intimate details.

This also explains why the Berlin response became such a useful part of the film's Korean publicity. Audience applause at a festival screening cannot replace domestic reception, but it signals that the emotional structure of the film was understandable to viewers outside Korea. For a drama tied to Jeju April 3, that kind of early international recognition helps frame the release as both a Korean historical film and a human story about memory, identity, and belated recognition.