Seoul (ANTARA News/Yonhap-OANA) - A South Korean film about a North Korean defector struggling to adapt to life in the South has been awarded the top prize at an Italian film festival, the movie`s distributor said Wednesday.

"The Journals of Musan" by director Park Jung-bum won the grand prize at the 47th Pesaro Film Festival that closed Monday, JINJIN Pictures Co. said in a release.

The movie also received the Young Critics Award at the festival. With its latest awards, the film has now won a total of 13 prizes at international film festivals.

Released in April, the film has since drawn some 11,500 local viewers, according to the distributor.

Park also played the main character in the film based on the real-life story of his late friend from North Korea.

South Korea is home to more than 21,700 North Koreans who fled hunger and political oppression in their communist homeland, but many of them fail to get decent jobs in the South, despite receiving three months of mandatory resettlement training.

The Koreas remain technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty.
(T.A045/H-AK)

Editor: Priyambodo RH
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