BIFF Opens with SHIN Su-won’s GLASS GARDEN on October 12th
October is just around the corner, which means that it’s almost time to kick off Asia’s top celebration of cinema. The
Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) will return for its 22nd edition on October 12th, during which it will screen around 300 films from 75 countries across the globe, including 100 world premieres and 29 international premieres. As usual, the lineup features a broad variety of films but this year’s fest is putting a particularly strong focus on women directors and films from Japan and China.
Strong Representation of Women Filmmakers
For the first time, BIFF will both open and close with films directed by women.
SHIN Su-won, one of the leading voices of Korea’s independent scene, returns with her fourth feature
Glass Garden, which will have its world premiere at it serves as this year’s opening film. Following her Berlin-invited
PLUTO (which debuted as a gala presentation in Busan in 2012) and her Cannes-premiered
Madonna in 2015, SHIN’s latest features
MOON Geun-young as a bio researcher who retreats to the countryside, where a struggling writer (
KIM Tae-hun) approaches her and uses her as inspiration for a new novel.
Closing the fest, which runs until October 21st, will be Love Education, the latest from Taiwanese director and actress Sylvia CHANG. Featuring CHANG both as actress and director, Love Education chronicles a dying woman’s reminiscences of her family’s past troubles as they try to move the family graves. CHANG’s last work Murmur of the Hearts was the opening film of the Hong Kong International Film Festival in 2015.
Continuing the strong representation of women directors this year is
Take Care Of My Cat (2001) director
JEONG Jae-eun, who returns with her first fiction film since 2005’s
The Aggressive. JEONG’s Japan-Korea co-production
Butterfly Sleep will be one of this year’s five Gala Presentations. Not only that, JEONG is also featured in the Wide Angle Documentary Showcase with her latest non-fiction feature
Ecology in Concrete.
Another two of this year’s Gala films hail from Japan, with the international premiere of YUKISADA Isao’s drama
Narratage and
The Third Murder, the first thriller from BIFF regular KOREEDA Hirokazu. Two more heavy hitters round out the Gala selections, with John WOO’s
Manhunt (incidentally also set in Japan), a return to his HK-era action roots which features Korean star
HA Ji-won, as well as Darren Aronosky’s headtrip
mother!, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem.
Brand New Korean Films across Various Sections
Several other notable films will bow in the Vision lineup.
A Tiger in Winter, is the third straight BIFF premiere for
Romance Joe (2012) and
A Matter of Interpretation (2015) director
LEE Kwang-kuk. The
KwangHwaMoon Cinema collective, which was responsible for
Sunshine Boys (2013),
The King of Jokgu (2014) and
The Queen of Crime (2016) return with their first women-directed title,
JEON Go-woon’s
Microhabit.
Hit the Night is the sophomore work of
JEONG Ga-young, director of the popular indie
Bitch On the Beach. The
MYUNG FILMS LAB has two films in the section,
LEE Hwan’s debut
Park Hwa-young and
Mothers with
LIM Soo-jung, the second film from
LEE Dong-eun, who debuted last year with
In Between Seasons, another MYUNG FILMS LAB production, which earned the KNN Award at BIFF.
Beyond films being screened, the Asian Cinema Fund has also introduced a new Production Support Fund program, whose first beneficiary will be
Not in This World, the latest project from
The Journals of Musan (2011) and
Alive (2015) director
PARK Jung-bum. The fund will endow the project with KRW 200 million in support during its production and post-production stages. Filming begins later this year and the film will screen at BIFF in 2018.
Notable International Features and Retrospectives
Looking to the international side of the program, BIFF will spotlight a number of Chinese-language films, including four in the New Currents section - Ying-Ting TSENG’s The Last Verse (Taiwan), HAN Dong’s One Night on the Wharf (China), ZHOU Quan’s End of Summer (China) and CHUNG King-wai’s Somewhere Beyond the Mist (Hong Kong-China). Other major titles peppered throughout the program include new Asian works by Anurag KASHYAP (The Brawler), Ann HUI (Our Time Will Come), MIIKE Takashi (Blade of the Immortal), KAWASE Naomi (Radiance), KUROSAWA Kyoshi (Before We Vanish) and KITANO Takeshi (Outrage Coda). BIFF will also screen this year’s Cannes Palme d’or winner (Ruben Östlund’s The Square) and Venice Golden Lion awardee (Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water).
This year’s retrospectives will include a section on the late SUZUKI Seijun, who will also posthumously receive the Asian Filmmaker of the Year Award, which include his classics Tokyo Drifter (1966), Branded to Kill (1967) and Zigeunerweisen (1980). The second Special Program in Focus will be a spotlight on cinema from the Sakha region in Siberia. The Korean Cinema Retrospective will focus on screen acting legend SHIN Seong-il, who starred in 500 films, such as KIM Soo-yong’s Mist (1967), LEE Man-hee’s A Day Off (1968) and LEE Jang-ho’s Heavenly homecoming to stars (1974).
In order to commemorate the untimely passing of KIM Ji-seok earlier this year, BIFF’s executive programmer and deputy director, the festival is introducing a KIM Ji-seok Award and establishing the Platform Busan event. A jury comprising of noted critics Tony Rayns and Darcy Paquet and Indonesian director Garin NUGRUHO will give the KIM Ji-seok Award to a film screening in the Window on Asian Cinema section. Platform Busan is a new networking forum in which 150 Asian filmmakers are expected to take part. A memorial service for KIM will also be held on October 15th.