The Korean Busan International Film Festival has announced the full program of its 29th edition, which will open with the world premiere of Uprisingproduced and co-written by Park Chan-wook, and ends with Spirit worldstarring Catherine Deneuve and directed by Singaporean Eric Khoo.
Director: Kim Sang-Man, Uprising is Park’s first collaboration with Netflix. Gang Dong-won and Park Jeong-min star in the historical epic, which Park co-wrote with Shin Chul and is about two childhood friends who become bitter enemies.
Spirit world In “The 40 Years of Love,” Deneuve plays a legendary singer who flies to Japan for one final sold-out concert and then begins an unexpected life in the spirit world, with one of her biggest fans as her guide. Masaaki Sakai also stars in the film, a French-Singaporean-Japanese co-production distributed internationally by Goodfellas.
Busan also announced that Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa has been named Asian Filmmaker of the Year. Two of his films will be screened at the festival – Snake Patha French-language remake of his 1998 Japanese film of the same name, and CloudJapan’s entry for next year’s Oscars in the category “Best International Feature Film”.
A total of 279 films will be screened during the 10-day run (October 2-11), including 86 world premieres and 13 international premieres. Organizers said the number of screenings was up about 8% from last year, despite a 50% cut in government subsidies. The KOFIC Theater, which is located next to the Busan Cinema Center and multiplexes across the city, was added as an additional venue.
The special programs in focus include Miguel Gomes, who was awarded Best Director in Cannes this year for Grand Tourand the previously announced special programs “Teen Spirit, Teen Movie”, which will show Asian coming-of-age films, including Tiger stripes, City of Wind, my Sunshine And Happy ending; and ‘In Memory of Lee Sun-kyun’, in memory of the parasite Actor who committed suicide late last year.
The previously announced competition sections “News Currents” and “Jiseok” include works by Brillante Mendoza, Rima Das and Tom Lin.
A Documentary Audience Award was also launched in Busan to support Asian documentary film production. The award is given to the film that received the highest rating from the festival audience in the “Wide Angle – Documentary Competition” category and comes with prize money of US$7,500 (KRW10 million).
Busan’s industry platform, the Asian Contents and Film Market (ACFM), has added a Producer Hub, which has set Korea as a focus country for its inaugural edition and will also host seminars on AI and streaming.
In addition, the Busan Asia Contents Awards & Global OTT Awards, which honor TV and streaming content, will be held on October 6, with PTS Taiwan’s Imperfect WeWong Kar Wais Flowers Shanghai and Netflix Cigarette Girl And A murderous paradox leads the nominations.
