The Pusan InternationalFilm Festival has unveiled a range of special events for its tenth anniversaryedition to be held in October, including an inaugural Asian Film Academy (AFA)modeled after the Berlinale Talent Campus and Sundance's Filmmakers Lab.

Festival director KimDong-ho also says that PIFF will double its number of participating theatresfrom 16 to 33 in an effort to address chronic ticket shortages.

"Many guests have hadtrouble getting into screenings in recent years, so we hope to resolve this bysecuring 3000 seats for this year's edition," said Kim.

The AFA will bring together20 young filmmakers and 8 experienced directors from the Asian region for athree week workshop in Seoul and Busan that will see teams produce a 15-minuteshort.

In addition, two or threequalified applicants from among this group will be selected to receive 6 monthsof language training and one year of studies at the Korean Academy of Film Arts(KAFA) and Dongseo University in Seoul.A fund will also be made available to support program alumni inproducing their debut works.

Other new additions to theupcoming festival include a secton titled "Remapping of Asian AuteurCinema" focusing on overlooked masters from the region; an "AsianPantheon" section containing 30 seldom-seen masterworks from Asian cinemahistory; a "Reunion of New Currents" containing new works bydirectors who have been awarded at PIFF over the past decade; and an APECSpecial Program held as a precursor to the city's hosting of the APEC(Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in November.

The festival will also holda ground-breaking ceremony for the $46m Busan Multimedia Centre, which willbecome PIFF's dedicated festival complex after its opening in autumn 2008.