BUSAN < invest Korea

According to Yonhap News,

(BUSAN=Yonhap News) "Glass Garden," a Korean mystery fantasy directed by Shin Su-won, will kick off the 22nd Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) next month, organizers said Monday.

Asia's largest film festival will run in the southern port city of Busan from Oct. 12-21 with a lineup of 298 films from 75 countries around the world, one fewer than last year's 299.

"Glass Garden" is about an oddball bioenergetics researcher who studies artificial blood using a chloroplast in a glass garden in the forest alone and an unknown novelist writing a story about her.

Directed by Shin Su-won and starring Moon Geun-young, the film will get its world premiere at the festival. It will be the third Korean film ever to open BIFF after "Always" in 2011 and "A Quiet Dream" in 2016.


Kim Dong-ho (R), chairman of the Busan International Film Festival's board of directors, and Kang Soo-youn, the festival's executive director, attend a news conference to announce the lineup for the 22nd edition of the festival in Busan on Sept. 11, 2017. (Yonhap)

The festival will close with Taiwanese director Sylvia Chang's "Love Education." The film metaphorically depicts China's modern history through the lives of three women of different generations.

This marks the first time in the fest's history that works by female filmmakers have chosen to open and close an event.

Ten films will be screened at the New Currents main competition section for up-and-coming Asian directors.

The 10 are broken down into three from South Korea, two each from China and India, and one each from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Iran. Oliver Stone is the head juror of the New Currents Award.

This year's festival will give a retrospective screening of eight South Korean films led by '60s movie star Shin Sung-il, who is currently struggling with lung cancer. Among the films are "The Barefooted Young" (1964) and "Keep Silent When Leaving" (1964).

Various memorial events are planned through the fest to remember its deputy executive director Kim Ji-seok, who died of a heart attack during his last business trip to the 70th Cannes Film Festival in May.

He was a founding member and executive programmer of the Busan film festival that launched in 1996.

Above all, BIFF created the Kim Jiseok Award in the Window on Asian Cinema category for showing current major trends of Asian films. It will honor two winners among the approximately 10 world premieres to be shown in the section. Each film will be awarded a cash prize of US$10,000.

Screening a memorial video and having a memorial night are part of the events planned.

Kim Dong-ho, chairman of the BIFF board of directors, said, "We're ready to greet visitors with a lineup that is as good as before in all fields, including the number of films invited, their quality and overseas guests.

"This year, in particular, the festival will bring new vitality to the Korean film industry by Platform Busan, a network of independent filmmakers," he added.

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Source: Yonhap News (Sep. 11, 2017)