Busan International Film Festival opens Wednesday

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

Entertainment & Arts

Tue, October 3, 2023 | 06:35

Films

Busan International Film Festival opens Wednesday

Posted : 2022-10-04 15:54

Updated : 2022-10-06 15:52

A poster for the 27th Busan International Film Festival / Courtesy of the BIFF

By Kwak Yeon-soo

The 27th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) starts on Wednesday, returning to its full configuration after being held in a scaled-down format during the COVID-19 pandemic. Film screenings and other related events will take place mostly offline in the southeastern port city of Busan through Oct. 14.

The opening ceremony will be held in the outdoor theater of the Busan Cinema Center with some 4,000 film industry members taking part in the event. Actors Ryu Jun-yeol and Jeon Yeo-been will be the co-hosts of the ceremony.

"Scent of Wind" by Iranian director Hadi Mohaghegh will be the opening film at this year's BIFF, followed by the cinematic works of some 240 directors from 71 countries, including the closing film, "A Man," by Japanese filmmaker Ishikawa Kei. The number of selected films in 2022 rose slightly from the 223 films at the 2021 festival.

While many foreign actors and directors were unable to come to Asia's biggest film festival during the last two years, dozens of big-name stars will visit Korea to participate in the BIFF this year.

Actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai in the film, "In the Mood for Love" / Courtesy of the BIFF

They include Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai, who has been named "Asian Filmmaker of the Year," and Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, who is well known here for his Korean film, "Broker," for which Korean actor Song Kang-ho won the Best Actor award at this year's Cannes Film Festival. U.S. producer Jon Landau will also visit Busan to show for the first time in public a 15-minute footage of "Avatar: The Way of Water," which will be released in December, and the film's director, James Cameron, will have an online meeting with fans.

One of the highlights of the festival has been a special talk program called "Actors' House" where Korean actors share their approaches to acting and creating characters. The lineup for the talk program this year includes: Gang Dong-won, Lee Young-ae, Han Ji-min and Ha Jung-woo.

In this year's "New Currents" competition section that introduces the first or second feature films of emerging directors, 10 movies, including "Ajoomma" by He Shuming, "Hail to Hell" by Lim Oh-jeong and "Shivamma" by Jaishankar Aryar, will vie for the prize.

Serge Toubiana, president of Unifrance, will lead the jury for the New Currents Award, along with French director Alain Guiraudie, Indonesian director Kamila Andini, Japanese actor Ryo Kase, and Lee Eugene, president of ZIP CINEMA and producer of "Broker."

The BIFF will also hold an event to commemorate late director Jean-Luc Godard, who pioneered the Nouvelle Vague cinema movement and directed numerous masterpieces for over half a century, including "Breathless," "Contempt" and "Alphaville." Godard died on Sept. 13.

The "On Screen" section, introduced last year to showcase new drama series to be released via over-the-top (OTT) services, will feature nine series including Lee Joon-ik's "Yonder," Roh Deok's "Glitch" and Miike Takashi's "Connect."

The "Korean Cinema Today: Special Premiere" section has been newly launched to promote appealing commercial films that have yet to be released. Two films in this section are "20th Century Girl" by Bang Woo-ri and "The Boys" by Chung Ji-young.

The BIFF's industry platform, Asian Content & Film Market, which had been held virtually, will be held as an in-person event for the first time since 2019. Its production support programs that have been suspended for the past two years, such as Asian Cinema Fund, Asian Film Academy and Platform Busan, will resume this year.

yeons.kwak@koreatimes.co.kr