Busan Film Festival Expands Program Despite Slashed Funding

The Busan International Film Festival will expand its screening program by some 8% in what it calls “an effort to maintain a scale befitting Asia’s top film festival.” This is despite a 50% cut in government financial support.

The festival will open on Oct. 2 with “Uprising,” a star-studded period drama from Netflix that was scripted and produced by Park Chan-wook (“Oldboy”) and directed by Kim Sang-man.

It will close on Oct. 11 with the Eric Khoo-directed “Spirit World,” which the Singaporean director shot in Japan with French icon Catherine Deneuve in the lead role.

“Uprising” involves a servant (played by Gang Dong-won) and his master, the som of a noble family with military connections. While they agree that the servant should be free, complications arise. The film also stars Cha Seung-won, Kim Shin-rock, Jin Sun-kyu and Jung Sung-il. “With Park Chan-wook’s signature humor oozing through the well-woven narrative, full of intense conflict and tension, the film is fueled with powerful and compelling energy that truly stands out,” said the festival selectors.

The festival will give its prestigious Asian Filmmaker of the Year Award to Japan’s Kurosawa Kiyoshi, whose “Cloud” recently premiered at Venice and whose “Serpent’s Path” will have its international premiere in San Sebastian. Busan will play both movies.

The festival said that it will screen 224 titles (features and shorts, included) in its official selection. There will be an additional 55 films in its community outreach program. To cope with the expanded lineup, the festival will use 28 screens at seven venues, including the KOFIC Theater, close to the main festival centre in the Centum area.

Despite the high-profile and ‘soft power’ impact of Korea’s entertainment sector, state funding for the arts has been cut under the current government. The Busan festival has had to seek greater commercial sponsorship and private funding, a task that was made harder after last year’s internal infighting spilled into the public domain. In January, the festival appointed veteran Park Kwang-su as chairman, but left Pak Dosin as deputy director and is still without a permanent festival director.

In the build-up to Tuesday’s press announcement, the festival had already announced a retrospective for Miguel Gomes, a tribute to the late Korean star Lee Sun-kyun and the launch of a ‘Teen Spirit, Teen Movie’ section.

It had also revealed the selection for its two main competition sections, New Currents and Jiseok.
Nevertheless, other novelties, such as the launch of a Documentary Audience Award, worth KRW10,000,000 ($7,500) and the bulk of the non-competitive programming remained to be announced.

The festival’s five main gala slots go to Kurosawa’s “Cloud” and “Serpent’s Path,” Jia Zhangke’s “Caught by the Tides,” Gomes’ “Grand Tour” and Patricia Mazuy’s “Visiting Hours.”