The 27th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) opened with a star-studded red carpet that included Hong Kong star Tony Leung, who accepted the Asian Filmmaker of the Year award last night (October 5).
At the outdoor theatre of the Busan Cinema Center, organizers and filmmakers expressed relief at being back to a fully-fledged in-person event for the first time since the pandemic started - as well as some trepidation about whether audiences would come back to cinemas in similar numbers.
“We share this long-awaited moment today after everyone struggled though the pandemic along with BIFF,” said Park Heong-joon, mayor of Busan Metropolitan City. “But how can we convince [audiences] to return to the cinemas is the question that is essential in Korea as it is in the rest of the world.”
With the city making a bid to host the World Expo 2030, a cooperative push was felt at the opening ceremony where BIFF chairman Lee Yong-kwan spoke of how Squid Game star Lee Jung-jae and K-pop group BTS have gotten behind the effort, to which BIFF is adding its support.
The comments were notable as many smaller local film festivals in Korea have been at odds their regional governments these days - BIFF co-founder Kim Dong-ho’s Gangneung International Film Festival having its funding pulled altogether this year - and with BIFF’s history of strife with previous governments over censorship and political pressure.
Star-studded night
Opening ceremony emcees Ryu Jun-yeol (Alienoid) and Jeon Yeo-been (TV’s Vincenzo) remarked upon the festival’s return to a fully-fledged in-person edition and what it means to cinephiles on both sides of the screen.
Ryu, whose career as an actor was launched by independent film Socialphobia, which won the Directors’ Guild of Korea (DGK) award and the Netpac award at BIFF in 2014, said, “I still can’t forget the warmth of cinephiles at the festival when I was first starting out.” Known for enjoying going to see films alone in the cinemas at BIFF, he encouraged audiences to make the most of the festival this year.
Leung, accepting his Asian Filmmaker of the Year award, said, “It’s really my great honor to receive this acclamation from the Busan film festival and thank you for giving me such an opportunity to come to Busan again to meet my Korean fans in person. I wish this year’s festival will be another successful one.”
Other notables on the red carpet included New Currents jury member Kase Ryo; producer Jon Landau, who is here to screen footage of Avatar: The Way Of The Water and give a talk on the production; director of Broker, Hirokazu Kore-eda and star Song Kang-ho, who won best actor with the film in Cannes this year.
Veteran Korean director Im Kwon-taek also walked the red carpet as did Japanese director Miike Takashi, who brings his first Korean-language project Connect, a Disney+ original series invited to the On Screen section; and Hansan: Rising Dragon director Kim Han-min with cast members Park Hae-il, Byun Yo-han and Ok Taecyeon.
Actor-producer Baek Jae-ho (Snowball), who will receive the inaugural Choon-yun award for rising producers - established in honor of the late chairman of the Korean Association of Film Art & Industry, Lee Choon-yun, who passed away last year - was also on hand.
Tributes
BIFF paid tribute to film personages who passed away this year including much-loved Korean music director Bang Jun-seok and directors Aoyama Shinji and Jean-Luc Godard. A special focus video on actress and former BIFF festival director Kang Soo-youn also screened.
Opening film Scent Of Wind director Hadi Mohaghegh, who won the 2015 New Currents and Fipresci awards with his second feature Immortal, said: “I am very pleased to be with you dear people of Busan. I feel like I am back home. This is the home where I lost one of my dear family members a few years ago, Mr. Kim Ji-seok.”
The late Kim, who passed away in Cannes in 2017, was the founding member of BIFF who tirelessly went out to discover, present and support Asian films and filmmakers such as Mohaghegh, and for whom this year’s new Jiseok competition is named.
BIFF festival director Huh Moonyung, who has described Mohaghegh one of the next generation of great Asian filmmakers to take on the mantel of Abbas Kiarostami and Hou Hsiao Hsien, said, “Scent of Wind is a small and quiet film that gives tremendous emotion and resonance,” before screening the film.
BIFF will run until October 14 with awards to be presented that day including the Korean Cinema Award, which will go to Goran Topalovic, co-founder of the New York Asian Film Festival, for his contributions to the globalization of Korean cinema.
No comments yet