For its 15th edition, the Network of Asian Fantastic Films (NAFF) project market is set to welcome guests and filmmakers back in its first in-person event in three years following two online editions during the pandemic.
At least one filmmaker each from 21 projects will attend the event on-site, which will be held from July 9-12 at Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (Bifan) in South Korea. The 24-strong competition is rounded out by three titles – Colombia-Argentina co-production Deliver Us From Hell, Brazil’s Carrion and Taiwanese drama series Bloody Smart – that will join online-only due to the lengthy travel time and Covid restrictions.
Scroll down for profiles of three previous NAFF titles set to premiere in Bifan’s Bucheon Choice competition
“We are keeping it hybrid from now on, not just this year,” says Thomas Nam, NAFF managing director. “NAFF is extremely popular among the international genre community. The pandemic is not over yet, but it’s also for the ease of industry guests from Europe and North America. This will enable the filmmakers to take both physical meetings with guests who are in Bucheon and offline meetings with those who are not there.”
The competition titles comprise 13 It Project market titles, 10 Korean country spotlight projects and one Spanish project, Upiro, selected from Ventana Sur’s genre platform Blood Window. They are eligible for eight cash awards, three post-production support and two in-kind prizes, including a new cash award presented by Japan’s Visual Industry Promotion Organization (VIPO). The prizes are worth a combined $300,000.
Rounding out the NAFF line-up are eight pre-selected winners - seven work-in-progress projects (all from Korea except Oversteer by Singapore’s Derrick Lui, a NAFF Fantastic Film School alumnus) and one from Fantastic 7 (Korean project Seoul Horror Story), bringing the total of this year’s NAFF projects to 32.
NAFF launched in 2008 as the first project market exclusively dedicated to genre films, with just the It Project market and country spotlight section at that time. Further strands were added over the intervening years, including work-in-progress and collaborations with Nordic Genre Invasion from Finland, Ventana Sur’s Blood Window from Argentina, Spain’s Sitges Pitchbox and the Cannes Marche du Film’s Fantastic 7.
“Our goal is to train new genre filmmakers, providing a cycle for them to learn the trade inside out,” says Nam. “We’re not sitting in the past because of Covid but continue to enhance our programme through past experience and adapt to the changing environment of the film industry like promoting women genre filmmakers and introducing drama series projects.”
NAFF has selected 399 projects in the last 15 years, of which 78 have been completed. This year, NAFF selections that will be screened at Bifan include three previous work-in-progress projects - Son Kyoung-won’s A Good Boy and Kim Jin-moo’s Mind Universe, both in the Korean Fantastic section, and Kim Lok-kyoung’s Jinju’s Pearl in the Merry-Go-Round section. A further three, which are profiled below, will premiere in Bucheon Choice competition section.
Huesera (Mex-Peru)
Dir. Michelle Garza Cervera
2019 BIFAN award winner at Blood Window, Argentina
Winner of both best new narrative and the Nora Ephron awards at Tribeca Film Festival in June, this supernatural body horror follows a pregnant woman as she plunges into a world of urban witches and confronts a sinister entity. Mexico’s Edher Campos of Machete Producitons and Paulina Villavicencio of Disruptiva Films serve as producers. Mexican director Cervera was awarded a Chevening scholarship to study in the UK where she completed an MFA at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her short films have been selected by more than 100 festivals.
Contact: XYZ Films, Tatyana Joffe tatyana@xyzfilms.com
SLR (Thai)
Dirs. Lertsiri Boonmee, Vutichai Wongnophadol
2014 official NAFF project - Thailand Spotlight
This feature debut is a horror thriller about a photography student who must choose between good and evil when he discovers that a haunted camera can take away people’s souls. Cherprang Areekul, the captain of Thai girl group BNK48, who made her film debut in Homestay, stars alongside Korapat ‘Nanon’ Kirdpan whose drama series credits include The Gifted, which earned him a best actor nomination at the Asian Television Awards in 2019. Thai directors Lertsiri and Vutichai previously co-directed feature-length telemovie Lhong for TrueVisions in 2012.
Contact: M Pictures, Alissa Apaitan alissaa@mpictures.co.th
Vesper (Lith-Fr-Bel)
Dirs. Kristina Buozyte, Bruno Samper
2019 NAFF award winner at Sitges Pitchbox, Spain
Starring Raffiella Chapman, Eddie Marsan and Rosy McEwen, this English-language dystopian sci-fi focuses on Vesper, a 13-year-old girl who makes use of her bio-hacking skills to fight for an alternate future. Produced by Lithuania’s Natrix Natrix and France’s Rumble Fish Fish Productions, the film received its world premiere at Karlovy Vary. Lithuanian co-director Buozyte previously received multiple awards for features The Collectress and Vanishing Waves, both of which were co-written by Samper from France. The duo co-directed a segment of US horror anthology ABC’s Of Death 2.
Contact: Anton, Louis Balsan lbalsan@antoncorp.com
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