Screen profiles the New Currents and Jiseok competition titles selected for Busan’s 27th edition, which runs October 5-14.
Ajoomma (Sing-S Kor)
Dir. He Shuming
This comedy drama follows a Korean soap opera-obsessed widow who travels out of Singapore for the first time, and goes on a journey of self-discovery while getting lost in Seoul. Veteran TV actress Hong Huifang plays the lead role of the Singaporean auntie (‘ajoomma’ in Korean). It marks the feature directing debut of He, following his Hainanese-language short documentary Letters From The Motherland, part of the 667 omnibus film that received its international premiere at Busan in 2017. Ajoomma is produced by Cannes award-winning filmmaker Anthony Chen (Ilo Ilo), who serves as producer through his Singapore-based Giraffe Pictures with Korea’s Lee Joonhan as co-producer. The screenplay was written by He and Kris Ong. It is almost 20 years since a Singaporean film last competed in Busan’s New Currents competition.
Contact: Yaoting Zhang, Rediance yaoting@rediancefilms.com
Blue Again (Thai)
Dir. Thapanee Loosuwan
The feature debut of Thai writer/director Thapanee centres on a fashion student in Bangkok who strives to support her family’s business of indigo-dyed clothing in her hometown. Newcomer Tawan Jariyapornrung plays the lead role of Ay, who endures bullying and jealousy in this coming-of-age story. It reflects the experiences of the director, whose hometown in the Sakon Nakhon province of northeast Thailand is well known for its tradition of indigo dye, and she returned to the region for the first time in many years to film Blue Again. The feature is produced by award-winning editor Chonlasit Upanigkit through his company Tud You. Co-producer Supatcha Thipsena’s credits include documentaries Come And See and School Town King, which screened at BIFF in 2019 and 2020 respectively.
Contact: Supatcha Thipsena bowsupatcha@gmail.com
Hail To Hell (S Kor)
Dir. Lim Oh-jeong
Adventure and moral dilemma combine in this story of two schoolgirls who decide to die by suicide but travel to Seoul on receiving news of how well their arch enemy is doing, planning to exact revenge before taking their own lives. It is the feature debut of South Korea’s Lim, who picked up awards for her shorts Empty Lies and No More No Less. The cast includes newcomers Oh Woo-ri, Bang Hyo-rin and Jung Yi-ju alongside established actors Park Sung-hoon, Lee Ju-won and Lee Seon-hee. The director says: “Suicide, death, bullying and cult may seem too heavy to be subject matters of a film, but I tried to express the hell they face in ways that are sometimes funny and sometimes sad through the liveliness of the mischievous and perky girls.”
Contact: M-Line Distribution sales@mline-distribution.com
Memento Mori: Earth (Viet)
Dir. Marcus Manh Cuong Vu
The first in a planned trilogy of films follows a young mother who is given only a few months to live following a cancer diagnosis. Van (newcomer Hai Yen Nguyen) spends her remaining time on a coffee farm in the central highlands of Vietnam, recording messages for her two young daughters. It marks the feature debut of writer/director Vu, who began his career reporting on film festivals for Vietnamese media before serving as festival director of Yxine Film Fest and curator for Asian Film Symposium. Inspired by the book The Destination Of Life by Dang Hoang Giang, director Vu is now working on Memento: Mori: Water, which was selected for the Asian Project Market at BIFF in 2021. Memento Mori: Earth is set for release in Vietnamese cinemas from October 7.
Contact: Thao Tran Phuong, Vietnam Media Corp/BHD phuongthao@bhdvn.com
No End (Ger-Iran-Turkey)
Dir. Nader Saeivar
Iranian writer/director Saeivar returns with his second feature after The Alien, which was co-written by Jafar Panahi and debuted at the Berlinale in 2020 before picking up prizes at the Hong Kong and Beijing film festivals. Saeivar is also known for winning Cannes’ best screenplay award in 2018 with 3 Faces, which he co-wrote with Panahi. Saeivar’s latest centres on an ordinary man in Iran who tells a lie — that secret police have searched his home — to dissuade his dissident brother-in-law from returning to the country. But events spiral when the lie sparks the real involvement of the authorities. Panahi, a winner of Cannes’ Caméra d’Or, Venice’s Golden Lion and Berlin’s Golden Bear, acted as consultant and editor on the film.
Contact: Jenny Revzin, Arthood Entertainment revzin@arthoodentertainment.com
A Place Called Silence (Malay)
Dir. Sam Quah
This thriller begins when three students from a girls’ school are found dead, while another disappears. The missing girl’s mother hunts for her daughter, all the while aware there is a killer on the loose. It marks the second feature of acclaimed Malaysian filmmaker Quah, whose crime thriller Sheep Without A Shepherd won the audience award at Bifan in 2020 after becoming one of China’s highest-grossing films in 2019. Quah had previously won awards for The Free Man, which was shortlisted for the best live action short film Oscar at the 88th Academy Awards. Quah had also been attached to write and direct Netflix’s first Chinese-language series Bardo.
Contact: Ruoyao Jane, Universal Creation Film Production ruoyaoyao@gmail.com
Shivamma (India)
Dir. Jaishankar Aryar
Non-professional actors were cast in this tale of a school cook who invests her hard-earned money in a network marketing business to raise herself out of poverty, but she puts her daughter’s marriage at stake in the process. Sharanamma Chetti takes the title role in the Kannada-language feature, which previously won a WIP Lab award at India’s Film Bazaar in 2021 and was showcased at Cannes’ Marché du Film earlier this year. Produced by Rishab Shetty, it marks the feature directing debut of India’s Aryar, who picked up awards for his 2019 short Lacchavva including a special mention at Mumbai International Film Festival.
Contact: Jaishankar Aryar, Rishab Shetty Films jaishnkr15@gmail.com
Thousand And One Nights (Jap)
Dir. Nao Kubota
A woman whose husband disappeared 30 years ago meets another woman whose partner has vanished, and asks for help in placing him on the Special Missing Persons list. Against the backdrop of a declining fishing village, one of the women waits patiently for her husband to return while the other wants to move on and make a fresh start. The cast is led by Yuko Tanaka and Machiko Ono. Thousand And One Nights is the second feature from Japan’s Kubota, whose debut Homeland premiered in the Berlinale’s Panorama in 2014. His long career, however, stretches back more than 100 TV shows since 1987. In 2007, he received the trailblazer award at Mipdoc in Cannes. Thousand And One Nights is produced by Japanese outfit Bitters End.
Contact: Bitters End international@bitters.co.jp
A Wild Roomer (S Kor)
Dir. Lee Jeong-hong
The debut feature of South Korean director Lee revolves around a carpenter who becomes close with a young landlord and his wife, and spends increasing amounts of time with them while small but strange things start to happen to him. The cast includes Park Gi-hong, who plays the carpenter, Ahn Joomin and Kim Jeon-gil. Director Lee previously won the best picture prize at Busan International Short Film Festival with No Cave and the grand prize at Seoul Independent Film Festival with his second short The Girl Lives In Haeundae. He later made ‘A Soldier And A Leopard’, one of the episodes from 2014 omnibus film Romance In Seoul.
Contact: Hyunjung Chung, Ironing Studio byzing@ironing.kr
The Winter Within (India-Fr-Qat)
Dir. Aamir Bashir
Indian TV presenter-turned-actor Bashir returns with his second feature after Autumn, which received its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival in 2010 before going on to play Rotterdam and Jeonju, and winning best feature film in Urdu at India’s National Film Awards. His follow-up centres on a domestic worker for a wealthy family in the Kashmiri city of Srinagar. She searches for her husband, missing since joining an armed rebellion against the Indian State, but is fired when her employer discovers this — giving her no choice but to return to her village. The cast of The Winter Within is led by Zoya Hussain, Shabir Ahmad Lone and Manzoor Ahmad Bhat. Producers are France’s Acrobates Films and India’s Sangbaaz Films with the support of Région Ile-de-France and Doha Film Institute.
Contact: Diversion festivals@diversion-th.com
Jiseok competition
Alteration (Uzbek)
Dir. Yalkin Tuychiev
Uzbekistani director Yalkin Tuychiev’s latest feature follows a Soviet soldier from Uzbekistan who is drafted into the Afghanistan war, and the changes he goes through as he gains enormous wealth from the withdrawal of Soviet forces and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Tuychiev’s The Source won the best film prize in the Perspectives strand of Moscow International Film Festival in 2006.
Contact: Azizbek Mannapov, Play This mannapov.azizbek@gmail.com
December (Jap)
Dir. Anshul Chauhan
The divorced parents of a high-school girl who was murdered by a classmate are thrown into dilemma when the perpetrator asks for a reduced sentence seven years after the killing. Shogen, star of the 2021 Kim Jiseok award winner Gensan Punch, plays the father in this world premiere. Tokyo-based Indian director Anshul Chauhan is an animator who worked on Tron Uprising. As a director, his live-action features include Kontora, which won Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival’s grand prize in 2019.
Contact: Fumie Suzuki Lancaster, SC Films International
fumie@scfilmsinternational.com
Life & Life (Iran)
Dir. Ali Ghavitan
Set amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the drama follows a teacher who is concerned about students who have not been attending online classes. She sets out in the car with her four-year-old daughter to visit them in the country and ends up discussing serious questions with the girl. Iranian director Ali Ghavitan’s credits include Dream About Sohrab, which screened at Moscow International Film Festival in 2021.
Contact: 7th Art Independent Film Distribution 7thart.ifd@gmail.com
Scent Of Wind (Iran)
Dir. Hadi Mohaghegh
Winner of the New Currents award and Fipresci prize at Busan 2015, director Hadi Mohaghegh (Immortal) stars in his latest work, which has been selected as the opening film for this year’s BIFF. It follows a disabled electrician going from town to town trying to replace a broken part for a family in difficulties in a remote Iranian village.
Contact: Persia Film Distribution info@persiafilmdistribution.com
Seventeeners (India)
Dir. Prithvi Konanur
When a video of two teenagers making love in an empty classroom is uploaded to a porn site, the school convenes a committee to decide on a punishment. But their decisions, based on caste, attract the attention of a human-rights activist and lawyer. Prithvi Konanur’s films include Where Is Pinki?, which won awards at project stage at NFDC Film Bazaar, world premiered at Busan in 2020 and went on to play festivals including Mumbai, Hong Kong and Taipei Golden Horse.
Contact: Prithvi Konanur, Konanur Productions prithvikonanur@gmail.com
Six Characters (Thai)
Dir. ML Bhandevenov Devakula
Director ML Bhandevenov Devakula, who was at Busan in 2011 with Eternity, returns with the international premiere of his adaptation of Luigi Pirandello’s play Six Characters In Search Of An Author. It centres on the director of a horror film starring Thailand’s most famous actor and actress. Things take a turn for the unusual when the power is lost during a storm and six strange people arrive on set claiming they are characters in search of an author to finish their story. Mario Maurer leads the star-studded cast.
Contact: Alissa Apaitan, M Pictures alissaa@mpictures.co.th
The Storyteller (India)
Dir. Ananth Narayan Mahadevan
Actor/writer/director Ananth Narayan Mahadevan’s latest film follows a retired widower who goes to work for a rich man — an incurable insomniac who wants a storyteller to help him fall asleep. Mahadevan has directed 16 features including Mee Sindhutai Sapkal (2010), which won multiple prizes at the Indian National Film Awards including the special jury prize.
Contact: Sanjay Ram, Jio Studios sanjay1.ram@ril.com
A Wing And A Prayer (S Kor)
Dir. Lee Kwangkuk
Two young women take a trip to the East Sea while waiting to hear the results of their recent job interviews. They argue, split up and make other acquaintances. A Wing And A Prayer marks the latest feature from award-winning director Lee Kwangkuk, whose films include Romance Joe, A Matter Of Interpretation and A Tiger In Winter, all of which were selected for multiple festivals including Busan and Rotterdam.
Contact: Rachel Joo, M-Line Distribution rachel@mline-distribution.com
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