Busan International Film Festival has finally earned the recognition it has long deserved. FIAPF announced in March that BIFF has been added to its list of “A-list festivals,” joining Berlin, Venice and Cannes. A few months later, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences confirmed that top prize winners from six international festivals, including Busan, will automatically qualify for the Best International Feature Film category of the Oscars.
The person now running the Busan International Film Festival, Jung Hanseok, has noticed a difference since the announcement was made. He took over as festival director last year, and he says the response to the news is already altering what the festival receives. “They give filmmakers a meaningful additional incentive to submit their work to BIFF,” he told Deadline.
The Competition Section That Finally Arrived
Last year marked the first time BIFF added a proper competition section, giving out honors across six categories. Those awards cover Best Film, Best Director, Special Jury Award, Best Actor, Best Actress, and an Artistic Contribution Award. The Best Film prize now serves as the route to the Oscars.
The Vision Awards hand out prizes to films across both the ‘Vision – Korea’ and ‘Vision – Asia’ sections, with independent juries doing the judging. Last year, Zhang Lu’s Korean-Chinese film Gloaming In Luomu won Best Film, while Taiwan’s Shu Qi took Best Director for Girl.
Confidence Building Fast
Jung admits that the competition section remains a relatively new addition to the festival, younger than its older counterparts. “One of our early challenges was to communicate its value and build confidence in the section as quickly as possible,” he says.
The Academy’s new pathway and the FIAPF recognition have helped speed up that process. He points to China as one territory where filmmakers’ interest has grown, since invited filmmakers are more likely to get attention when applying for public support.
“We’ve seen similar changes in Japan, where key industry figures have been noticeably more proactive and receptive towards BIFF’s Competition than they were last year,” he says. “Some filmmakers may now be able to envision a longer-term path that begins with winning the Busan Award for Best Film and continues into an Oscar campaign.”
Korean filmmakers are also waking up to this possibility. Korea’s Oscars committee has already submitted Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love as its official entry, currently receiving an Oscars-qualifying run in Korean theatres before streaming on Netflix.
A Wide Open Field
This year’s Competition section takes in all of Asia, and its line-up of 14 titles comes from China, Taiwan, Japan, Uzbekistan, Indonesia and Iran. Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou leads a seven-person jury.
This year’s line-up, according to Jung, holds a higher standard across the board, with the quality remaining steady throughout. He admits that it was only when planning this year’s festival that he came to fully understand the influence of the new section, which he had not fully grasped during the previous event.
“We’ve sensed a much more positive and receptive atmosphere around the Competition section than we did in its first year,” he says.
The Festival Opens Tonight
The festival kicks off tonight (Tuesday, October 6) with Kim Jong-kwan’s The Table: Day And Night, presented by Kim Minha (Pachinko). Michelle Yeoh is among the guests, recognised as Asian Filmmaker of the Year. Hong Kong director Ann Hui has been given the Camellia Award. Maggie Gyllenhaal will show her short film Flesh Impact in Special Screenings. French star Isabelle Huppert arrives with her new work, All About Corinne, for a meeting with local audiences.
Five more films than last year will be screened at the festival, bringing the total to 246, the largest lineup since 2019. The event opens a day early, and BIFF has expanded its screenings from Thursday through Sunday, which draws the biggest crowds.
| Event | Date |
|---|---|
| Opening night | Tuesday, October 6 |
| Screening of The Table: Day And Night | Tonight |
| Section | Prize Categories |
|---|---|
| Competition | Best Film, Best Director, Special Jury Award, Best Actor, Best Actress, Artistic Contribution Award |
| Vision | Films across ‘Vision – Korea’ and ‘Vision – Asia’ |
A Stable Road Ahead
In the longer term, BIFF intends to stay grounded in an Asian perspective. “At the same time, we want to continue asking ourselves what exactly ‘Asian’ should mean in that context,” Jung says.
When asked about the competition selection criteria, he answers simply: “the quality of each individual film.” He adds that the 14 titles together “should form a compelling cinematic landscape that reveals something of contemporary Asian cinema as it exists today.”
Bookings made online point toward a turnout that may top last year’s, and reactions to the altered timetable have been favorable.
FIAPF and AMPAS’s announcements finally put Busan’s reputation on paper, after years of the city building its standing as one of the world’s leading film festivals.
Source material: “Busan Film Festival Director Jung Hanseok Talks Oscars Pathway, New Competition Section & Korean Cinema Recovery,” Deadline.
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