It was his fourth feature film , '' Jiseul '' ( meaning " potato " ) , that brought O both domestic and international critical acclaim . Based on a tragic but largely forgotten historical event set during the Jeju Uprising in April 1948 , O cast non-professional local actors speaking in their native Jeju dialect to play a group of villagers who hid in a cave for 60 days , suffering cold and starvation , to escape from soldiers under shoot-to-kill orders . Shot entirely in black-and-white , the film had a small budget of ( ) , part of which was raised through crowdfunding . It premiered at the 17th Busan International Film Festival in 2012 , where it received four prizes : Best Director from the Director 's Guild of Korea , the Citizen Reviewers ' Award , the CGV Movie Collage Award , and the NETPAC Jury Award . The NETPAC jury praised it " for focusing on a dramatic historical event in an understated way , with stunning B/W cinematography , depicting the pathos and the psyche of the victims as well as the aggressors . " '' Jiseul '' won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize : Dramatic at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival , the first Korean movie to win that prestigious award . It also won the Cyclo d'Or at the 19th Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema and Best Film at the 1st Wildflower Film Awards . '' Jiseul '' was released in South Korean theaters in 2013 , and through positive word of mouth after the Sundance win , it became the best-selling Korean indie drama film with 144,602 admissions , as well as the most successful Korean film to be released on less than 100 screens ( this record was later broken by '' Han Gong-ju '' )
17th
17th Busan International Film Festival
O Muel