Emerging between 1996 and 2000 Korea's leading festivals have risen in prominence both domestically and internationally as Korea's film industry by the end of the 2010s had grown to become one of the leading national cinemas in Asia. The Busan International Film Festival had its first edition in 1996, the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN) was launched in 1997 and the Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF) was established in 2000 echoing the emergence of Korea's leading auteurs who also made their debuts during this period.

BIFAN stood out for its focus on genre cinema and has since turned into a must-go event for genre fans as well as programmers, and critics looking to discover the latest in genre cinema. Indeed, the Korean film industry is synonymous with its genre-bending fare that remains at the heart of its appeal to audiences far and wide even as the industry has struggled to mount a recovery in the post-Covid era. The enthusiastic reaction in Cannes to Na Hong-jin's Hope (2026) is illustrative of the ability of Korea's genre filmmakers to further raise that bar.

Spotlight on Korean Genre Films

This year in Bucheon that is located just out of Seoul, it has celebrated its 30th edition highlighting the Korean genre films that have left their mark on the industry over the past three decades. It's been a bumper edition with a total of 321 films from 50 countries consisting of 170 features, 85 shorts as well as 38 AI films and 28 XR contents. The festival opened with the Korean premiere of Chinese action film Blades of the Guardians (2026) directed by Yuen Woo Ping.

Train to Busan (2016)

This year the festival launched the three-year project, Asian Genre Films 99 that is jointly organized by the Korean Film Archive. The first chapter of this focus called Korean Genre 33 is a selection of Korean genre films curated by a committee consisting of eight members including two BIFAN programmers. They chose 33 Korean genre titles that were produced between BIFAN's inaugural edition in 1997 through to 2026. Ten of these films were screened this year including a remastering of Lee Myung-se's iconic action film Nowhere to Hide (1999) as well as Jang Joon-hwan's Save the Green Planet (2003), Choi Dong-hoon's Tazza: The High Rollers (2006), Kim Jee-woon's The Good, The Bad, The Weird (2008) and Yeon Sang-ho's Train to Busan (2016).

Very Ordinary Couple (2013)

The festival this year also compiled a list of genre films by female directors comprising of eleven titles with five of them screening at this year's edition. This includes Pang Eun-jin's Princess Aurora (2005), Lee Soo-youn's The Uninvited (2003), Roh Deok's Very Ordinary Couple (2013) and Lee Eon-hee's Missing (2016).

Bucheon Choice

As ever the Bucheon Choice is the festival's main competition screening international features in the Bucheon Choice World: Features section with Curry Barker's smash hit Obsession (2026) being a title that was difficult to secure tickets for. Other films invited to this section included Damian McCarthy's Hokum (2026), Adrian Chiarella's Leviticus (2026) and Nagahisa Makoto's Burn (2025).

Once We Were Us (2025)

In the Korean Bucheon Choice section it comprised of ten features including Huh Gun's Last Mankind (2026), Jeong Beom's Knock (2025), Sim Kyu-ho's Focus (2025) and Lee Yong-sun's Company Sports Day (2026). The festival also put together a section titled Bucheon Choice Korean: Genrephile revisiting some of the Korean genre films from the last few months. There are four films in this part of the program: Kim Do-yeong's Once We Were Us (2025), Yeon Sang-ho's Colony (2026), Lee Sang-min's Salmokji: Whispering Water (2026) and Son Jae-kon's Wild Sing (2026).

Colony (2026)

AI Focus

BIFAN has been an early embracer of Artificial Intelligence having dedicated a significant part of the program to AI films and events over the past couple of years mirroring Korea's approach to rapidly advancing technology. This year was no exception with an AI competition (Bucheon Choice: AI Films) that consisted of two features, 13 shorts. An AI Frontier section was also compiled with one feature and more than 20 shorts. Taking place this year was an AI Contents Summit that included an international conference, business meetings and an exhibition. In addition, the AI Film Institute that was co-founded by Bucheon City, SBS A&T and BIFAN in 2025 played a role at this year's festival with a Fantastic Film School and number of courses training new and young filmmakers from both Korea and overseas.

While the adoption of AI remains controversial as the festival director Shin Chul acknowledged at the opening of NAFF (Network of Asian Fantastic Films), more and more major filmmakers are getting behind it. Martin Scorsese is the latest teaming up with AI firm Black Forest Labs as an advisor and said he is utilizing the technology to assist in creating storyboards.

NAFF (Network of Asian Fantastic Films)

The festival's industry component NAFF remains an integral part of the event. Launched in 2008 it is the world's first genre film festival program. Over the past 18 years it has selected close to 500 projects. This year it showcased 32 projects from 29 countries with cash awards and post-production awards given to selected projects.

This year, the Project Spotlight once again turned to Korea highlighting its genre filmmaking capabilities with seven projects in the Korean selection including three international co-productions as the industry seeks to engage in more such projects.

Focus: France was launched in 2024 by France's CNC, Unifrance and the French Embassy as they seek to expand on exchanges between France and Korea. This year's edition was selected as an official commemorative event for the 140th anniversary of France-Korea relations. There have been a number of events this year to mark the occasion following the visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to Korea in April this year. Three projects this year were part of the France selection, while the Nordic Genre Invasion section featured four projects.

This year's BIFAN opened on July 2nd and will continue until the 12th.

Written by Jason Bechervaise
Edited by kofic