Asgar Farhadi to head Busan jury

The 19th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) today announced its New Currents jury members to include Snowpiercer director Bong Joon Ho with the Oscar-winning director of A Separation, Asgar Farhadi, to head it up.

The jury will award two films $30,000 each, selected from the 12 in the New Currents showcase for new directors.

Farhadi and Bong will be joined by Indian actress and filmmaker Suhasini Maniratnam, whose Kadal was a Gala Presentation last year in Busan, and professors Dina Iordanova of St. Andrews and Jacques Rancière of the University of Paris VIII.

Farhadi’s film The Past, which won the best actress award for Bérénice Bejo in Cannes, screened in Busan’s A Window on Asian Cinema section last year, while Bong’s Snowpiercer was a Gala Presentation.

Wide Angle

The festival yesterday announced its two juries for the Wide Angle section for creative short films, animations, documentaries, and experimental films.

The BIFF Mecenat Award Jury, which gives KW10m ($9,775) to one Korean and one Asian documentary respectively, comprises Cinéma du Réel artistic director Maria Bonsanti; Singaporean director Tan Pin Pin - whose To Singapore, With Love screened in Busan last year; and Korean director Yi Seung-jun, whose Planet Of Snail won the best feature-length documentary award at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in 2011.

The Sonje Award Jury also gives KW10m to one Korean and one Asian short, respectively. This year it is made up of Yuya Ishii, director of Japan’s submission to the 86th Academy Awards foreign language film category, The Great Passage; Doug Jones, executive director of Images Cinema in the US and former programmer at the Los Angeles Film Festival; and Korean director Park Jung-bum, whose debut feature The Journals Of Musan won the New Currents and FIPRESCI awards at Busan in 2010.

The 19th BIFF will run Oct 2-11.