Horror Stories, For Love’s Sake to bookend PiFan

The fest will open with the world premiere of the omnibus Horror Stories, directed by Min Kyu-dong, Jung Bum-shik, Hong Ji-young, Yim Dae-woong and the co-directing team of Kim Gok and Kim Sun.

Horror Stories presents four episodes combined into an Arabian Nights type of structure where a young girl is kidnapped by a serial killer who cannot sleep unless she provides a horrific bedtime story every night. Each episode addresses a social issue in contemporary Korea. Min connected the stories in an overall structure while the others took charge of a segment each.

The festival will close with Miike Takashi’s manga-based film For Love’s Sake, starring Tsumabuki Satoshi. Previously screened in Cannes earlier this year, the film will make its Asian Premiere at PiFan. With action and comical musical elements, the film fits PiFan’s broader definition of genre selections.

“We thought about what kind of films audiences have come to expect from PiFan and have programmed the most PiFan-esque films we could find this year. The selection has increased by 14 countries and nine films since last year, reflecting how many diverse films have been produced this year around the world,” said head programmer Jin Park.

The festival centre will move this year to Bucheon City Hall where galas will be held every night. (Bucheon is the new Romanised spelling of the festival’s location ‘Puchon’).

The Puchon Choice competition showcases 12 features and 12 shorts, including the world premiere of Indonesian mystery Belenggu, directed by UPI, and the international premiere of hard gore animation Blood-C: The Last Dark. (See below for full list of features in competition.)

Special programmes include ones on Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn, 70s Korean comedies, the recently deceased Ken Russell, Spaceship Yamamoto, Mog Culture Project 3D films, Argentine cinema and Czech animation. Leading Korean production house Myung Film gets a retrospective which includes The Isle, Joint Security Area (JSA), The Quiet Family and Happy End.

In addition to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Mick Garris’ Bag Of Bones, festival director Kim Young-bin also has a film in Special Screenings. Produced as part of a series by Arirang Broadcasting, City In Blossom is a love story based in Bucheon. The film previously screened at the Yubari and Hawaii festivals.

Three films in Miyagi Hero Summit 2012 Special Screenings will mark cooperation between the city of Bucheon and Miyagi prefecture after the great Eastern Japan earthquake and tsunami.

The 5^th Network of Asian Fantastic Films previously announced its 20-film line-up for the It Project market and a 5-film spotlight on Indonesian projects as well. Forums this year will deal with case studies on film adaptations of Korean web cartoons, crowd-funding and sci-fi storytelling.

Puchon Choice Feature Film Line-up

(title/country/director)

Belenggu (Indonesia) UPI – world premiere

Blood-C: The Last Dark (Japan) Shiotani Naoyoshi – international premiere

Citadel (Ireland) Ciaran Foy

Excision (US) Richard Bates, Jr.

Extraterrestrial (Spain) Nacho Vigalondo

Hell (Germany, Switzerland) Tim Fehlbaum

King Kelly(US) Andrew Neel – international premiere

Livid (France) Alexandre Bustillo / Julien Maury

Motorway (Hong Kong, China) Soi Cheang

Space Brothers(Japan) Mori Yoshitaka – international premiere

The Squad(Argentina, Colombia, Spain) Jaime Osorio Marquez

Wrong (France) Quentin Dupieux