One of the major changes for festival guests this year, particularly those taking part in any market activities, was the change of venue for the BIFAN Industry Gathering (B.I.G.). The event, which comprises the Network of Asian Fantastic Film (NAFF) project market, and the Korean Now, Made in Asia and New Media talks and forums, moved from the Koryeo Hotel to the Bucheon Art Bunker B39, a former garbage incinerator that was transformed into a sleek new multidisciplinary cultural art space.
NAFF once again hosted hundreds of pitch meetings for new genre filmmakers from around the world who had a chance to meet with global investors, sales agents and more as they look to get their new project made. After several days of intense and productive meetings, the NAFF awards were handled out at the BIG Closing Ceremony at B29 on July 3. The top Bucheon Award went to director Hugo KEIJZER’s The Occupant, Phan LINH’s Dogcow won the Bound Entertainment Award, Fingernail from Boaz ARMONI earned the NAFF Award, NAKANISHI Mai’s Hana and YU Eung-jeong’s Lay the Ghost shared the NAFF Korean Award and David CHANG’s The Medium: The Flaming Exorcist Sinner was awarded the DHL Award.
Looking at this year’s program, some of the highlights included a KIM Hye-soo retrospective, a ‘Robots: Future Beyond the Human Race’ section to go along with this year’s Blade Runner theme and a Korean classic genre film sidebar to mark the centenary of Korean cinema. But one of the most notable changes to the program this year was the ‘Crossover’ sidebar in the Korean Fantastic lineup, a new section that reflects the changes within the film and TV markets in Korea as film directors are increasingly moving to the small screen or streaming platforms.
Also looking to the future were the components of ‘New Media’ program of B.I.G., which included five days of talks and hosted a VR screening room at Bucheon Art Bunker B39 which was run during most of the festival to give festival attendees a taste of one of the new directions cinema is currently taking.
Following a successful 23rd edition, BIFAN will return once more next summer with a fresh dose of global genre cinema and a new slate of forward-thinking programs.