Heartbeat, the first short film by South Korean director Lee Chang-dong, will stream worldwide on Netflix from 2 November, the company said on 30 October. Yonhap reported that the 28-minute film has had no cinema release since its first screening at the Jeonju International Film Festival in 2022. It arrives four days before Lee’s Venice Silver Lion winner Possible Love, which Netflix streams globally from 6 November.
Key facts
- Heartbeat (2022), directed by Lee Chang-dong, runs 28 minutes, according to Yonhap
- Netflix streams it worldwide from 2 November 2026, with subtitles in languages including English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, French and German
- Kim Geon-u plays the boy, Cheol; Jeon Do-yeon plays his mother; Sul Kyung-gu voices his father
- The film was made at the suggestion of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation (BCAF), on the theme of depression
- Possible Love, which won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at Venice on 12 September, follows on Netflix on 6 November
A short with a public-health brief
In Heartbeat, Cheol knows that his mother lives with depression. When she stops answering her phone, he runs home, and the camera stays on his face for nearly the whole film. Netflix’s synopsis says the boy “faces obstacles on his frantic journey home”. Yonhap’s report adds that Cheol’s father is staging a labour protest at the top of a tower crane, a strand Sul Kyung-gu plays by voice only.
The project began as a commission. The WHO and BCAF asked directors around the world to make films about depression, and Lee’s contribution premiered at Jeonju in 2022. Netflix places the story inside the fictional setting of Possible Love, and the two films share their adult leads: Jeon Do-yeon and Sul Kyung-gu also head the cast of the feature.
How Netflix is building the release
Heartbeat is the latest piece of a catalogue Netflix has assembled around Lee before Possible Love opens on the service. The company says it has already made his earlier features available worldwide: Green Fish, Peppermint Candy, Oasis, Secret Sunshine, Poetry and Burning. Netflix calls the short “a four-day prelude” to the feature.
Possible Love premiered in competition at Venice on 6 September. It was Lee’s first film in the Venice competition in 24 years, since Oasis in 2002 won him the Silver Lion for best director, the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) noted. The new film won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize on 12 September. Its cinema dates, announced in July, were 23 September in Korea, 22 October in Australia and 23 October in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland and Japan, Variety reported. On 7 October Lee and his four leads met audiences at an Open Talk session for the film at the Busan International Film Festival, according to the festival’s programme.
For Netflix, Lee is part of a wider Korean push. The company, which launched in South Korea in January 2016, celebrated ten years there with a fan festival in Seoul on 24–25 October, where co-CEO Ted Sarandos previewed Possible Love among its coming titles, as we reported on its Korean viewing figures and slate. Festival films from Asia have been a regular thread in our coverage, from Tokyo’s Asian Future premieres to the Tokyo jury’s view of the FIAPF A-list.
What has not been published: Netflix has not said how the six older films have performed since they were added, or whether Heartbeat will be offered to cinemas or festivals in any territory.
Our reading
A 28-minute short is rarely a commercial asset on its own. Netflix is using Heartbeat as a trailer with its own critical standing: a finished Lee Chang-dong work, with the same two leads, that a subscriber can watch in half an hour before deciding on the feature. The six older films do the same job at greater length.
The approach treats an auteur’s back catalogue as marketing for a new title, rather than as library filler. Whether it works will show in two places: in Netflix’s weekly non-English film chart for the week from 2 November, where Possible Love needs to appear to justify sending a Venice prize-winner to the service two weeks after its limited opening in cinemas in the US, the UK and Japan, and in whether the older Lee titles register in the same period. If neither moves, the short will have been a gesture to cinephiles. If both do, Netflix has a template it can reuse for other festival directors in its catalogue.
Sources
- Netflix newsroom, 30 October 2026 (release date, credits, synopsis)
- Korea Times (Yonhap), 30 October 2026 (running time, Jeonju premiere)
- Netflix Tudum, Possible Love wins the Silver Lion at Venice 2026
- Variety, 28 July 2026 (Possible Love cinema and Netflix dates)
- Korean Film Council (KOFIC), 8 September 2026 (first Venice competition entry in 24 years, since Oasis in 2002)
- Busan International Film Festival, Open Talk schedule, 7 October 2026
- Netflix newsroom, 24 October 2026 (Netflix marks 10 years in Korea)