South Korea’s Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BiFan), Asia’s largest genre film fest, has announced 21 titles from 12 countries to be presented during the Network of Asian Fantastic Films (NAFF) genre film project market.
Dubbed It Project, the market has in past years showcased films such as Arvin Chen’s Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? and Lisa Takeba’s Haruko’s Paranormal Laboratory, which have screened at festivals including Tribeca, Berlin and Rotterdam.
NAFF will run July 19-22 during BiFan, which will run July 16-26. Previously known as PiFan, the fest changed its name earlier this year in belated accordance with the current system of Romanizing Korean names. Thus it now uses ‘Bucheon’ instead of ‘Puchon’ to indicate the pronunciation of the name of the satellite city of Seoul that hosts this fest.
Aside from arranging business meetings, NAFF will hand out post-production awards and a total of KW66m ($59,300) in cash prizes.
BiFan said this year saw “the highest number of submissions” it has had, with 171 projects (88 local and 83 foreign) from 28 countries.
Seven of the final 21 selections are Korean projects. They include Never Die Again from Park Jung-bum, director of The Journals Of Musan and Alive; and The Bunker from Kim Gok, director of 2012 BiFan opening film Horror Stories. The Bunker also has a former NAFF Fantastic Film School participant Chris Weatherspoon attached as a producer.
Other titles include Hong Kong project The Hell Bank Heist, with Isabella director Pang Ho-cheung attached as producer, and Australian project Silk, directed by Isabel Peppard, whose animation Butterflies screened at BiFan 2012 as well as at Sitges and Melbourne.
The fest reports a total of 130 projects from 21 countries were selected to the It Project market in the past seven years and 35 of them were completed and theatrically released. These include films such as The Terror, LIVE (2013), AM 11:00 (2013), Azooma (2012), and The King Of Pigs (2011).
NAFF It Project 2015 Line-up
(project/ country/ director / producers)
1. Abracadabra (Indonesia) dir. Faozan Rizal, prod. Ifa Isfansyah, Isabelle Glachant
2. Astrid’s Saints (US) dir. Mariano Baino, prod. Mariano Baino, Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni
3. Concealment (Korea) dir. Han Jung Kook, prod. Je Jeong Ju
4. Gun Women: The Patriots (Japan-US) dir. Mitsutake Kurando, prod. Yanagimoto Chiaki
5. I Have A Date With Spring (Korea) dir. Baek Seung Bin, Yoo Ji Young, Choi Chang Whan
6. Jump Class (Singapore-Taiwan-Hong Kong) dir. Ming Qun Liu, prod. Johnny Sya Chung Lau, Caroline Kwauk
7. Lost In Border (Hong Kong) dir. Ho Hong, prod. Gilbert Po, Ho Hong
8. Motel Acacia (Philippines-Malaysia) dir. Bradley Liew, prod. Bianca Balbuena
9. Never Die Again (Korea) Park Jung Bum Park Jung Bum Secondwind Film Production
10. Quanto T’amo (Italy) dir. Matteo Botrugno, Daniele Coluccini; prod. Laura Tosti
11. Re:Born (Japan) dir. Shimomura Yuji, prod. Fujita Shinichi, Inoue Midori
12. Rocky Choy The Wonder Boy (Philippines) dir. Victor Louie A. Villanueva, prod. Daphne O. Chiu
13. Silk (Australia) dir. Isabel Peppard, prod. Lizzette Atkins
14. Six Killers In A Coffee Shop (Singapore) dir. Neil Humphreys, prod. Justin Deimen
15. Suni (Korea) dir. Red, prod. Kim Hyung Oak
16. The Animal (Korea) dir. Park Jae Young, prod. Park Soo Young
17. The Bunker (Korea) dir. Kim Gok, prod. Choi Jeong Rak, Chris Weatherspoon
18. The Four (Korea) dir. Lee Seong Tae, prod. Kim Sang Su
19. The Hell Bank Heist (Hong Kong) dir. Wan Chi Man, prod. Pang Ho-Cheung, Tsang Kwok Cheung, Liang Subi
20. The Tag-Along (Taiwan) dir. Wei-Hao Cheng, prod. Han-Hsien Tseng
21. Tide (Thailand) dir. Disspong Sampattavanich
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