BUSAN < invest Korea

According to Yonhap News,

(BUSAN=Yonhap News) The Busan International Film Festival opened in the southern South Korean city on Thursday. It will run until Oct. 21 and feature 300 films from 75 countries from around the world, one more than last year's 299.

Singer-actress Im Yoon-ah, better known by her stage name Yoona of popular K-pop group Girls' Generation, and actor Jang Dong-gun co-hosted the opening ceremony that began at the 5,000-seat outdoor theater at the Busan Cinema Center in the evening following a red carpet event.

Despite rainy weather, the theater was soon packed with Busan citizens and cinephiles who came from in and out of the country to enjoy the annual event.

Some 250 Korean and foreign filmmakers and actors walked on the red carpet to attend the ceremony and waved to their fans. They included Korean actors Moon Geun-young, Son Ye-jin, Cho Jin-woong, Moon So-ri, Ahn Sung-ki, Shin Seong-il and Kim Rae-won. Among foreign guests were Japanese actresses Yu Aoi and Miho Nakayama, and world-renowned directors Oliver Stone of the United States, Li Xaofeng of China, and Bahman Ghobadi of Iran.

Following the ceremony, this year's opener "Glass Garden," a Korean mystery fantasy directed by Shin Suwon who also made "Pluto" (2012) and "Madonna" (2015), was screened for its world premiere. Moon Geun-young stars in it. It became the third Korean film ever to open BIFF after "Always" in 2011 and "A Quiet Dream" in 2016.

"Glass Garden" is about a hurt and abandoned bioenergetics researcher who takes refuge in a glass garden in the forest to continue her study of artificial blood using chloroplasts.

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 been chosen to open and close the event.

Ten films will be screened at the New Currents main competition section for up-and-coming Asian directors. The 10 comprise 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.

In the Gala Presentation section for introducing the latest works from established directors, four films will be screened. They are "Butterfly Sleep" by Korean director Jeong Jae-eun, "Mother!" by American director Darren Aronofsky, "Narratage" by Japan's Isao Yukisada and "The Third Murder" by Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda.

This year's festival will include a retrospective screening of eight South Korean films led by '60s movie star Shin Seong-il, who is currently struggling with lung cancer. Among the films are "The Barefooted Young" (1964), "A Day Off" (1968) and "Gilsotteum" (1985).

Various memorial events are planned throughout the fest to remember late Kim Ji-seok. He was a founding member and executive programmer of the Busan film festival, which was launched in 1996.

Foremost of these memorials is the new Kim Jiseok Award in the Window on Asian Cinema category, which highlights major current trends in Asian film. It will honor two winners among 10 world premieres to be shown in the section. Each film will be awarded a cash prize of US$10,000. A memorial night and the screening of a memorial video are also part of the events planned.

Virtual reality will be a highlight for this year's festival.

The organizing committee recently signed a contract with Seoul-based Barunson Co., a leading content producer in Korea, to co-host "VR Cinema in BIFF."

Many international film festivals have lately screened movies produced with VR technology in order to broaden the spectrum of the films they present. But this will be the first time BIFF has hosted such screenings. Thirty-six VR movies in different genres, such as drama, documentary and animation, will be shown at a separate screening venue in the Busan Cinema Center.

Also, a VR conference will be held at the Busan Exhibition & Convention Center (BEXCO) on the sidelines of the Asian Film Market, which runs from Oct. 14-17.

BIFF will this year launch "Platform Busan," a network of independent Asian filmmakers comprising around 150 filmmakers from 19 Asian countries. It will provide a chance for the filmmakers to build solidarity, receive filmmaking education and exchange useful information on making inroads into the global market, according to the organizers.


View of the opening ceremony of the 22nd Busan International Film Festival at Busan Cinema Center in Busan, South Korea, on Oct. 12, 2017. (Yonhap)

sshim@yna.co.kr

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Source: Yonhap News (Oct. 12, 2017)