Forgot password

 

The 16th Jeonju International Film Festival, which will take off with the spirit of spring, unveiled its highlight programs. This year’s festival will feature 200 films from 47 nations while it also plans to increase the size of the event by securing new theaters. “The small but strong JIFF is reborn as a festival that takes off with the citizens,” chairman of organizing committee KIM Seung-soo said about the meaning of this year’s film jubilee. “The 16th JIFF will take off as a film festival that respects preferences and variety through a good mix of popular genres while also looking at specific minor tastes,” festival director KO Suk-man said.

Partisan directed by Australian director Ariel KLEIMAN was picked out as the opening film of the festival. This film was completed through a workshop of the Sundance Film Festival. Whiplash was also produced through the same workshop. Partisan was spotlighted as the hottest work at Sundance this year. “Ariel KLEIMAN received praises at Sundance by showing many short films. We have high expectations for Partisan, the feature debut by ‘Sundance Kid’ Ariel KLEIMAN,” said programmer LEE Sang-yong, explaining why they selected the film.

The 16th JIFF supports films that go beyond the boundaries through programming them at the festival. It also announced this year that it will be putting an emphasis on its role as a strong supporter for Korean independent films. ‘The Jeonju Cinema Project’ renamed from ‘The Jeonju Digital Project’ is also noticeable. Following the change of shorts to feature films last year, they aim to stress and brand Jeonju starting this year. They will also focus on programs that discover and illuminate new and creative artists and films.

The Special Focus section will introduce Central and South American films through a retrospective program for Argentine director Martin REJTMAN. The festival also prepared a special program about Greek New Wave films that have been receiving much attention from world cinema since the second half of the 2000s. ‘Cinematology’ is a new section that screens movies about film history and films by major film artists with the motto of ‘education for movies.’ This new initiative was made to differentiate Jeonju from other film festivals. JIFF takes pride in the increased number of works from female directors, which came up to 27% of total programming this year. The event will also show its vision to promote exchanges with South American cinema and filmmakers that began in 2014. 

This year’s jury is worth paying attention to. The 16th JIFF announced jury members for main sections including the International Competition section on April 3. Director Jessica HAUSNER of Austria and director ZHANG Lu, actress MOON So-ri, actor Vangelis MOURIKIS and Kate Taylor, a specialized programmer of East Asian films for the BFI London Film Festival were selected as jurors in the International Competition which discovers creative young directors. Eligible directors must have made just one or two films. Jessica HAUSNER is regarded as an Austrian master after Michael HANEKE largely due to her debut film Lovely Rita that was invited to Un Certain Regard at the Cannes International Film Festival, as well as her follow-up films, Hotel and Lourdes. In addition to serving as a juror, HAUSNER will also showcase her recent film Amour Fou at this year's JIFF. Director ZHANG Lu will attend JIFF again as jury this time after directing Scenery for the Jeonju Digital Project at its 14th edition. In addition, actress MOON So-ri, who will serve as a juror in International Competition, will also meet the audience with her short film The Running Actress as a director in Korea Cinemascape. Vangelis MOURIKIS, a veteran actor representing Greek cinema will meet spectators via three films starring him in Special Focus: Fallen Myth: Innovation in Greek New Wave. The three films are Stratos, Norway, and Attenberg.

In Korean Competition, Marcelo ALDERETE, a programmer of the International Film Festival of Mar de Plata, director KIM Sung-ho of How To Steal a Dog, and film critic Tony RAYNS will choose winners among ten finalists. Marcelo ALDERETE who has profound knowledge about Korean and Asian films serves as a programmer for the International Film Festival of Mar de Plata in Argentina, where PARK Jung-bum won the Best Actor Prize for Alive, another work made through the Jeonju Digital Project 2014.

The jury members for the Korean Competition for Shorts program are John CANCIANI, the artistic director of the Winterthur International Short Film Festival and director PARK Jung-bum who has received much attention from around the world for The Journals of Musan and Alive, and Korean actress SHIN Dong-mi who starred in films such as A Hard Day and A Matter of Interpretation. The NETPAC Prize, awarded by the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC), will select one awardee among Korean feature films from the non-competition section, Korea Cinemascape.

The 16th JIFF’s bursting ambition can be seen through the number of films, which are the highest ever, as well as the increased number of seats. The event will feature 200 films from 47 nations, 19 more than 2014. It is the first time since the 11th film festival to secure 200 or more films. The number of screens rose to 17 through six theaters including Jeonju Sports Stadium where the opening and closing ceremonies and large-scale outdoor screenings will be held, and CGV Jeonju Hyoja, a new theater for the festival beginning this year. An increase in the number of films to be screened led to sharp increases in the numbers of screenings and seats. These changes will lead to more than 420 more screenings and 90,000 more seats.  

JANG Byung-won, a programmer for the Jeonju International Film Festival, emphasized that the festival area of JIFF that had been focused on the Cinema Street as its center expanded into Jeonju Sports Stadium and CGV Jeonju Hyoja area. “Last year, many viewers visited the theaters, recording the biggest-ever number of sellouts. During the weekend and Children’s Day holiday, Cinema Street was crowded,” JANG said. “Traffic congestions reached the Traditional Korean Village, compelling some viewers to be late for screenings. Theaters in Cinema Street have outworn facilities. These are the results of our efforts to tend the filmmakers’ and spectators’ inconveniences and prepare facilities that fit its status as an international film festival.”
The organizing committee intends to make Jeonju Sports Stadium as a plaza of the festival with the active participation of the citizens and to provide the best condition for watching movies by designating CGV Jeonju Hyoja, which opened in the second half of last year as the main theater. They will increase the number of screens by including CGV Jeonju Hyoja and Jeonju Sports Stadium and actively provide more space and films for the increasing audiences, even though the two places are a little far away from Cinema Street in Gosa-dong, which has been the center of the festival over the past 15 years. The organizing committee said that they prepared countermeasures for the management of the festival such as efficiently running shuttle bus services and adjusting screening intervals since the range of audiences’ moves becomes wider.

“The organizing committee also knows audiences’ love of Cinema Street well,” JANG continued. Although the venue of the festival expanded this year, the street will be the center of the JIFF. The street will be loaded with programs for audiences such as an exhibition of 100 films posters screening at this year’s festival, adapted by graphic designers.

As it prepares to show various changes and attempts this year, JIFF emphasized its goal of getting closer to the audiences while keeping its identity. It is an unwritten law that film festivals shunned by viewers won’t survive. The16th JIFF will be entering the third year since there has been a shift in the organization. Many are paying attention to see if the audiences will positively accept these changes. The 16th JIFF will run in Jeonju for ten days from Thursday April 30th to Saturday May 9th.