Participant, Oscar Winner Bong Joon Ho & Matt Palmer Team On ‘Sea Fog’ Adaptation

Amanda N'Duka
·2 min read

Participant and Oscar winning Parasite director Bong Joon Ho have teamed up for a new adaptation of Sea Fog, a feature based on Bong’s 2014 Korean film Haemoo, which will be written and directed by Matt Palmer (Calibre).

The original film, which was directed by Shim Sung Bo and written by Bong and Shim, was adapted from the 2007 stage play by the same name and inspired by a true story. It follows a fishing-boat crew on a dangerous commission to smuggle a group of undocumented immigrants from China to Korea.

Palmer is crafting the screenplay based on a previous draft by Oren Moverman. Specific plot details for this adaptation are still being developed.

Bong, Dooho Choi, and Lewis Taewan Kim will produce Sea Fog with Participant’s Jeff Skoll and Anikah McLaren serving as executive producers.

“I’m absolutely thrilled to be working with one of modern cinema’s most singular and visionary talents, Bong Joon Ho, and with Participant, whose incredible track record in producing deeply inspiring, socially committed cinema for mainstream audiences is unapparelled,” said Palmer, whose debut feature, Calibre, won The Michael Powell Award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and was released on Netflix in 2018. “These are dream partners to be teaming up with on a project with such unique potential to deliver both nerve-shredding tension and an urgent social message.”

“Participant makes films that explore the realities of our time, and director Matt Palmer reveals people’s true natures by putting them in extreme situations as he did in the superb crime thriller Calibre,” said Bong. “I can’t contain my excitement and anticipation to collaborate with this team on the newborn Sea Fog.”

“Sea Fog touches on the unspoken tragedy often associated with human trafficking,” remarked Participant CEO David Linde. “We are very excited to join forces with the visionary filmmaker Bong Joon Ho, Matt Palmer, Dooho Choi and Lewis Kim in bringing this incredibly impactful and relevant story to audiences at a time when stories about coming together are more important than ever.”

Palmer is repped by WME and 42, while Bong and Choi are repped by WME and Jonathan Gardner. Bong’s manager is Jerome Duboz.

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