Source: NEON

The New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF), celebrating its landmark 25th edition, and Film at Lincoln Center will present the North American premiere of HOPE (호프, Hopeu) the final cut of the fourth feature from acclaimed South Korean director Na Hong-Jin (THE WAILING, THE CHASER, THE YELLOW SEA). Selected as the festival's Centerpiece Film presented by NEON, the screening will take place on Monday, July 20, 2026, at 7:00 PM at the SVA Theatre, as part of NYAFF 2026, which runs July 10–26 across five New York venues anchored by Film at Lincoln Center. HOPE also caps off NYAFF's complete Na Hong-Jin retrospective, a rare chance to see all four of the director's features, every one of which premiered at Cannes. 

Director Na Hong-Jin is also the recipient of the 2026 Daniel A. Craft Award for Excellence in Action Cinema. Named for Dan Craft, a founder of the festival and a die-hard fan of action cinema, who died in 2013, the award honors filmmakers working at the highest level of the form he loved. HOPE is considered the largest and most relentless film of Director Na’s career, ten years after THE WAILING. Previous recipients include Hong Kong action maestros Dante Lam (OPERATION RED SEA) and the legendary Yuen Woo-ping (THE MATRIX, BLADES OF THE GUARDIANS). 

Mixing sci-fi, action, mystery, and the director's trademark dark humor, the film follows the residents of Hope Harbor, from a weary police chief and his foul-mouthed sergeant to a ragtag group of hunters, as a mysterious presence emerges in the forests surrounding their quiet village. Like THE WAILING, the film wrestles with fear of the unknown, mistaken assumptions, and the violence that grows from misunderstanding. "Ultimately, what this film hopes to explore and convey is the familiar adage that all the world's tragedies stem from misunderstandings," says Na. While audiences may come for the pulse-pounding genre spectacle, the director describes HOPE simply as "a human drama." 

HOPE brings together a marquee Korean cast led by Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, and Squid Game breakout Hoyeon in her feature film debut, alongside an international ensemble portraying the film's mysterious visitors through performance capture: Academy Award nominee Michael Fassbender, Academy Award winner Alicia Vikander, Taylor Russell (WAVES, BONES AND ALL), and Cameron Britton (MINDHUNTER, MICKEY 17). Shot across South Korea and the untouched wilderness of Romania's Retezat National Park by cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo (THE WAILING, PARASITE, BURNING), the film is also scored by Michael Abels (GET OUT, NOPE). NEON will release HOPE in North America on Wednesday, September 9th

 

NYAFF 2026 Spotlight on Na Hong-Jin Series

 

Alongside the premiere, NYAFF will present a retrospective of Na Hong-Jin's earlier films, offering audiences the chance to revisit the work of a filmmaker who has spent nearly two decades pushing Korean genre cinema into stranger and darker territory. From his breakout debut THE CHASER (2008, on 35mm), the relentless serial-killer thriller that premiered in Cannes' Midnight Screenings section, to the brutal cross-border noir THE YELLOW SEA (2010, Un Certain Regard 2011) and the supernatural dread of THE WAILING (2016, Out of Competition), each film expanded the boundaries of genre filmmaking in its own way. With HOPE, his first film in Competition, NYAFF brings together all four of Na's features for the first time, a fitting celebration of a filmmaker whose work has always been impossible to predict.

 

• THE CHASER (2008) — Sunday, July 26, 5:45 PM SVA Theatre - 35mm
• THE YELLOW SEA (2010) — Sunday, July 19, 3:30 PM Korean Cultural Center New York
• THE WAILING (2016) — Sunday, July 19, 9:30 PM SVA Theatre 
• HOPE (2026) — Monday, July 20, 7:00 PM SVA Theatre — Centerpiece Presentation · North American Premiere · Intro & Q&A with Na Hong-Jin

 

ABOUT THE NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL 

Celebrating its 25th edition in 2026, the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) is North America’s leading festival of Asian cinema. It was called “the best film festival in New York” by The Village Voice and “arguably the world’s best-curated program of new and classic Asian cinema” by IndieWire. Launched in 2002, the festival showcases a wildly diverse lineup of singular titles each year, ranging from mainstream blockbusters and art-house eccentricities to genre and cult classics. It was the first North American film festival to champion the works of Johnnie To, Bong Joon Ho, Park Chan-wook, Takashi Miike, and other auteurs of contemporary Asian cinema. Notable festival guests have included Lee Byung-hun, Ryoo Seung-wan, Masami Nagasawa, Sammo Hung, Lee Jung-jae, and Jackie Chan. Since 2010, NYAFF has been produced in collaboration with Film at Lincoln Center. 

#NYAFF2026 

Full lineup and updates: nyaff.org

Follow: @nyaff on Instagram, X, and Facebook for guest announcements and exclusive content.

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About NEON

In only nine years, NEON has garnered 57 Academy Award® nominations, winning Best Picture for Sean Baker’s ANORA and Bong Joon Ho’s PARASITE. This year, NEON received 18 Oscar nominations, the second most for any motion picture studio. Joachim Trier’s SENTIMENTAL VALUE and Kleber Mendonca Filho’s THE SECRET AGENT were both nominated for best picture, with SENTIMENTAL VALUE ultimately winning the award for Best International Film – bringing the studio’s total to 11 wins.  

NEON continues to champion bold, risk-taking cinema and has built an impressive streak winning the coveted Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, with seven consecutive wins, including this most recent year’s winner FJORD, as well as IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT, ANORA, PARASITE, ANATOMY OF A FALL, TITANE, and TRIANGLE OF SADNESS. In 2024, NEON was named The Hollywood Reporter’s Independent Studio of the Year and received the Clio Award for Studio of the Year.   

As a burgeoning leader in the production space, NEON’s recent and upcoming in-house productions include: David Robert Mitchell’s THEY FOLLOW; Alex Ullom’s 4 x 4: THE EVENT; Matt Johnson’s THE VICE GUIDE; and Arie and Chuko Esiri’s CLARISSA, which had its world premiere at the Directors’ Fortnight during this year’s Cannes Film Festival. 

NEON has grossed over half-a-billion at the box office, highlights include Osgood Perkins’ LONGLEGS, which was the highest grossing independent film of 2024 at $75 million domestically, and his follow-up feature THE MONKEY, NEON’s second highest opening. The studio is currently in post on its fourth Perkins film, THE YOUNG PEOPLE. Their upcoming slate includes notable auteurs such as Chloe Domont and Cristian Mungiu. NEON’s recent releases include NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE; Baz Luhrmann’s EPiC: ELVIS PRESLEY IN CONCERT; Steven Soderbergh’s THE CHRISTOPHERS; and HOKUM starring Adam Scott. Up next: Alex Ullom’s IT ENDS; Sundance hit LEVITICUS; HER PRIVATE HELL; James Grey's PAPER TIGER, Ryusuke Hamaguchi's ALL OF A SUDDEN; and Bong Joon Ho's ALLY.  

NEON’s library spans more than 140 films, including Academy Award nominees SIRAT, ARCO, PERFECT DAYS, ROBOT DREAMS, ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED, MOONAGE DAYDREAM, and FLEE, which made history becoming the first film to score an impressive trifecta of Oscar nominations; double Oscar nominee THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD, PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE and triple Oscar nominee and winner I, TONYA.