Montreal-based Evokative Films has picked up Canadian rights to Noh Young-seok’s Daytime Drinking. The deal was negotiated with Eleven Arts, which had North American rights, and sales agent Finecut.

A local hit in its native South Korea, the low-budget dramatic comedy premiered at the Jeonju International Film Festival in 2008 where it won the JJ-Star Award as well as the audience prize then moved to Locarno where it won a special mention and a NETPAC Award. It has since screened at Toronto, the Vessoul Asian Film Festival, Rotterdam, SXSW and Hong Kong.

Producer, screenwriter, director, cinematographer, production designer, editor and composer Noh follows the travails of a young man alone at a desolate seaside town who takes up with the locals in a never-ending odyssey of drinking.

Eleven Arts will release the film this summer. Evokative says the Canadian release will follow shortly after with a DVD release in the autumn. Newcomer Evokative has thus far acquired eight films; Daytime Drinking is the company’s third from South Korea.