While Hong Sangsoo's entire body of work is filled with artists, from filmmakers to poets, painters to novelists, rarely is the creative process actually made visible. Paintings, novels, poems and films are commented on, discussed and occasionally even glimpsed, but the act of their creation has remained conspicuously absent from Hong's work, until now.

In Water tells the story of the making of a short film, by a group of three friends. The director, Seongmo (Shin Seokho), has decided to make a film with the last of his savings. His former classmate, Sangguk (Ha Seongguk), will operate the camera and Namhee (Kim Seungyun) will act in it.

From this simple story, Hong illuminates the uncertainty of creativity, the joy of friendship, and the bittersweet nature of existence, doing so with an atmosphere of palpable serenity and melancholy. If the nature of its premise sounds familiar, Hong's approach to it is anything but, as he radically plays with focus, oscillating between impressionist swathes of colour and digital sharpness.