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Fans of eclectic cinema in Korea are lucky to have several events to choose from every year to sate their thirst for new and varied stories but summer holds a special place for many with the arrival of the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BiFan - Chairman, CHOI Yong-bae), Asia’s largest annual celebration of genre cinema which this year marks its 21st edition in the vibrant Seoul satellite city.

Starting on July 13th, BiFan will unspool for 10 days, during which almost 289 films hailing from 58 countries, including 63 world premieres and 29 international premieres, will screen in multiplexes and the City Hall theater around central Bucheon, with their air-conditioned theaters beckoning the masses from the scorching heat and sweltering humidity with global tales of fantasy, horror, sci-fi and adventure.

 

For the first time since 2012’s omnibus Horror Stories, a Korean film has been selected to kick off the festival. The title in question is Room No. 7, a new high concept thriller that marks the commercial film debut of director LEE Yong-seung, who debuted to great acclaim with his low-budget feature 10 Minutes. 

Room No. 7 features SHIN Ha-kyun of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) and Save the Green Planet (2003) as a man trying to sell his DVD bang (DVD viewing room) business. Meanwhile DOH Kyung-soo of MY ANNOYING BROTHER is a part-time worker in the establishment who comes across a dead body in one of its rooms. LEE’s first film was a graduation project from the Dankook Graduate School of Cinematic Content and became an award winner at the Busan International Film Festival and the Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema.

The following day BiFan’s broad range of programs will open to the public. Taking pride of place in the program as always are the Bucheon Choice competition sections, for feature and short films. Local indie The End, from BiFan veteran JEON Kyu-hwan, will screen alongside Laotian horror Dearest Sister, directed by Mattie Do, a participant of last year’s Fantastic Film School in Bucheon, The Endless, the new film from former guests Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, and nine other international titles.

 

A broad range of works will be made available in the World Fantastic and Vision Express section this year but many are looking forward to the new unique sidebars, which include ‘Contact, JEON Do-yeon’, ‘Álex DE LA IGLESIA : El Maestro Cineasta Fantastico, ‘HONG Ki-seon: The Cinema beyond Grand Apparition and Policy’ and ‘Terrible Women: Monsters and Villainess’.

One of Korea’s leading lights in the acting field, JEON Do-yeon has earned the Best Actress award from the Cannes Film Festival for her part in LEE Chang-dong’s Secret Sunshine (2007). All 17 of her feature films will play in this year’s retrospective, including Happy End (1999), Untold Scandal (2003) and The Housemaid (2010). The program will also be accompanied by an exhibition featuring stills and posters from JEON’s films as well as a special video.

Other retrospectives will be held for directors Álex De La Iglesia and HONG Ki-seon. Known for his deranged dark comedies, which include The Day of the Beast (1995) and The Last Circus (2010), De La Iglesia is a renowned Spanish genre filmmaker who will visit Bucheon this summer and take part in a special talk. The late Korean filmmaker HONG, known for his socially conscious works such as Where the Truth Lies (2009), shocked the industry when he died late last year, just three days after completing production on his fourth work The Discloser, which will have its world premiere in BiFan. 

Another program that viewers are keenly looking forward to is ‘Terrible Women’, which brings together classic films which depict femininity as their source of fear. These include Brian De Palma’s Carrie, MIIKE Takashi’s Audition and KIM Ki-young’s Ieoh Island. The program will also feature the megatalk ‘Terrible Women: The Strong, the Monstrous and the Badass’, to be moderated by BiFan programmer KIM Ellen Y. D..

 

Alongside the films invited to screen this year, several events will also concurrently take place, many of them under the banner of B.I.G. (BiFan Industry Gathering), which returns for its second year, such as the ‘Networks of Asian Fantastic Films’ (NAFF), ‘Made in Asia’, ‘Korea Now’ and ‘New Media’.

This year’s NAFF, which will mark its 10th anniversary, will take place from July 15th to 18th in the Koryo Hotel in Bucheon and introduce a total of 24 projects that will meet with potential co-producers, distributors and investors and compete for cash prizes and other awards. 16 projects will take part in the signature IT Project, while another four are part of this year’s Project Spotlight on Vietnam. Nordic Genre Invasion returns with a trio of works while Blood Window, a genre film program from South America, will take part for the first time with one project. Also returning will be the Fantastic Film School, which will feature 24 budding filmmakers from around Asia receiving mentorship from a group of experienced advisors, including Hancock writer Vincent NGO and The Ring producer Mike Macari.

‘Made in Asia’ will take a look at what makes for success in several Asian markets as producers of the past year’s box office hits will take part in a large forum on July 15th, including LEE Dong-ha (TRAIN TO BUSAN), CHOI Jae-won (The Age of Shadows) and Ivy HO (Cold War 2). On the same day a special Asia Co-Production Forum will examine the state of co-production between several Asian countries. A ‘Best of Asia’ program featuring 22 of the biggest hits across the continent in 2016 is also part of the BiFan lineup.

Looking to within the Korean film industry, the ‘Korean Now’ program will feature events such as the ‘SF Fantastic Forum’, ‘BIFAN Scenario Showcase’, ‘D.O.P’s Visual Language Seminar’ and ‘Korean Film Policy Roundtable’ among others. Taking a look at the new horizons for the film industry will be the ‘New Media’ section, which will include talks on VR and online streaming platforms as well as the ‘VR Experience Zone’ which will be available to the public at Bucheon City Hall throughout the festival.

It’s almost time for film fans to pack their sunscreen and umbrellas, as one never knows what surprises BiFan has in store.