BIFF is coming through a period of challenge to demonstrate its strength as a leading showcase for Korean and Asian cinema.
The 28th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF, October 4-13) is set to prove a landmark edition, rebuilding a recently tarnished reputation with a strong selection of films, events and guests.
Internal and local political problems have plagued BIFF since May, when festival director Huh Moonyung resigned and managing director Cho Jongkook was dismissed. BIFF chairman Lee Yong-kwan subsequently came under fire with accusations he was responsible for the situation and resigned in late June (see below for more).
“It has been a very challenging and stressful time,” says BIFF programme director Nam Dong-chul, who in the wake of the turmoil was appointed interim festival director alongside Kang Seung-ah as acting managing director. “It has been like walking in the darkness and not being able to see an exit, but we have worked hard so the festival can achieve its goals. Recovering our reputation is my real task.”
This will be achieved through the strength of the programme and attendance by filmmakers and high-profile talent, says Nam. The festival opens with the world premiere of book-to-film adaptation Because I Hate Korea by local filmmaker Jang Kun-jae. He returns to the South Korean port city with his fourth feature after winning the Directors Guild of Korea award at BIFF 2014 with previous film A Midsummer’s Fantasia.
Ning Hao’s Chinese film industry satire The Movie Emperor, starring Andy Lau, is set as the closing film, following its debut last month at Toronto.
Bringing star power to Busan is Hong Kong-based Chow Yun-fat, recipient of the honorary Asian filmmaker of the year award in-person at the opening ceremony. A special focus on the actor comprises screenings of John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow, Ang Lee’s four-time Oscar winner Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and recent release One More Chance by Anthony Pun. Other high-profile guests making the trip to Busan include Chinese actress Fan Bingbing and filmmakers Luc Besson, Bertrand Bonello, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Lee Isaac Chung and Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
The 10-day festival screens 209 films from 69 countries in its official selection, including 80 world premieres. A further 60 films make up its Community BIFF selection, which includes showcases curated by local audience members, short films made by residents and events. The festival uses 25 screens across four theatres, comprising BIFF’s own Busan Cinema Center, CGV Centum City, Lotte Cinema Centum City and Lotte Cinema Daeyoung.
One new element this year is a sidebar dedicated to Korean-American filmmakers, titled Korean Diasporic Cinema. It will include six titles: Celine Song’s Sundance hit Past Lives, Lee Isaac Chung’s Oscar winner Minari, Aneesh Chaganty’s Searching, Lee Chang-dong’s Burning, Justin Chon’s Jamojaya and Kogonada’s Columbus. Korean-American actors John Cho and Steven Yeun will attend the festival as part of the Korean Diasporic Cinema showcase.
Nam believes combining these stars with a wide selection of films will bring audiences back to BIFF, despite a slowdown at the mainstream box office in South Korea. “Only one Korean film [The Roundup] was successful during the summer season so there have been questions about how to bring audiences back to cinemas, but film festivals here — from Jeonju to Bucheon — continue to draw large audiences so I’m anticipating big numbers at Busan, similar to before the pandemic,” he predicts.
Across the festival
A special programme is dedicated to Indonesia, which is rapidly emerging as a film powerhouse in Southeast Asia, and will bring directors including Edwin, Mouly Surya, Kamila Andini and Joko Anwar to meet Busan audiences.
The New Currents competition for first- or second-time feature film directors from Asia comprises 10 titles, of which all but one are world premieres. These include two debut works by Bangladeshi directors: The Wrestler by Iqbal H Chowdhury, about an elderly man from a fishing village who challenges a wrestling champion to combat; and The Stranger by Biplob Sarkar, a coming-of-age story in which a boy grapples with questions of gender identity.
“There are three Bangladeshi films across our two main competitions, which is very unusual but a triumph for Bangladeshi cinema,” says Nam. “I only felt sorry I couldn’t find a film from Iran to compete. There are big political problems in Iran right now, which has not been good for their film industry, so I couldn’t select any titles this year, where I usually select more than one film for our competitions.”
A further eight titles compete in the Jiseok strand, which launched last year and is aimed at more established Asian directors. It is named after Kim Ji-seok, the late BIFF founding programmer who died aged 57 during Cannes Film Festival in 2017.
Titles include The Moon from Japan’s Yuya Ishii, set inside a sanatorium that provides care for both disabled and elderly people, which features a cast of distinguished Japanese actors including Rie Miyazawa and Joe Odagiri.
Returning to BIFF is Kyrgyz director Mirlan Abdykalykov with Bride Kidnapping, having won the Fipresci Award at the festival in 2019 with Running To The Sky.
The festival’s gala presentations include Kore-eda’s Cannes award-winner Monster, Bonello’s Venice Competition title The Beast and Han Shuai’s Green Night, which premiered in Panorama at the Berlinale in February.
As ever, BIFF screens buzz titles from this year’s international festival circuit, including Justine Triet’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner Anatomy Of A Fall, Nicolas Philibert’s Berlinale Golden Bear winner On The Adamant and Venice Competition titles Evil Does Not Exist by Hamaguchi, David Fincher’s The Killer, Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border and Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things.
Special screenings play tribute to the actress Yun Jung-hee, who died in January and was a leading star in the heyday of Korean films in the 1960s and 1970s, later winning awards for Lee Chang-dong’s 2010 feature Poetry. There is also a tribute to Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, who died in March, with a screening of concert film Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus.
Having shepherded this year’s festival over the line, is Nam keen to make the interim festival director job a permanent one? “This is just one-time only, I hope,” he says. “I like to watch films, speak with directors and programme the festival. I’d rather leave communication with the likes of officials and marketing to someone else.”
Dealing with disruption
Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) is no stranger to challenging times, having faced several controversies over the past decade. The latest have involved a series of top-level resignations at both the festival and industry platform, the Asian Contents & Film Market (ACFM).
The turmoil began in May when the festival director’s job was effectively split in two, appointing Cho Jongkook to the new position of managing director alongside festival director Huh Moonyung. This was swiftly followed by the resignation of Huh. Not long after, Huh was accused of sexual harassment by a festival employee, which he denies; the case is now being investigated by the Center for Gender Equality in Korean Cinema.
In a bid to address the disruption, Cho was dismissed and Lee Yong-kwan, one of BIFF’s original founders, took responsibility for the situation and resigned as chairman of the festival.
Oh Seok Geun, director of ACFM and another of BIFF’s original founders, was the next to step down, at the end of June, saying: “I tried to do my duty to help resolve and rectify the situation smoothly and lay the foundation for a new leap forward for [BIFF], but I feel that my ability has reached its limit.”
Replacements have yet to be appointed but the festival’s lead programmer, Nam Dong-chul, was named interim festival director while deputy director Kang Seung-ah was named acting managing director to shepherd this year’s edition. Despite all this, many at the festival still class the past few months as the second-most stressful period after what happened nearly 10 years ago.
In 2014, the festival refused a mayoral request not to screen The Truth Shall Not Sink With Sewol, a documentary critical of then-president Park Geun-hye’s administrative mishandling of a ferry disaster in which more than 300 people died. Subsequent political persecution, which resulted in prolonged upheaval of the festival leadership (during which time one of the festival’s founding programmers and then-deputy director Kim Ji-seok died of a heart attack in Cannes), along with the Sewol disaster itself, were part of the reason why Park was impeached in 2017, prosecuted and jailed.
BIFF had regained ground as physical editions returned after the pandemic, but recent upheavals have impacted the confidence of sponsors locally. Acting festival director Nam revealed the organisation’s budget has been reduced to around $7.5m (krw10bn) as sponsors had fallen away. BIFF is now working to rebuild its reputation, once again.
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