Busan’s Asian Film Market has announced major events including a Korean Producers Forum featuring 10 filmmakers whose hits broke the 10 million admissions landmark at the local box office.

Discussing the present and future of the Korean film production, the forum will include director/producer Kang Woosuk (Silmido), director/producer Kang Je-kyu (Taegukgi), director/producer Lee Joon-ik (King And The Clown), producer Choi Yong-bae (The Host), director/producer JK Youn (Haeundae), producer Won Dongyeon (Masquerade), producer Kim Minki (Miracle in Cell No. 7), producer Ahn Soohyun (The Thieves), producer Choi Jaewon (The Attorney) and director/producer Kim Hanmin, whose recent Roaring Currents is the all-time top hit with over 16 million admissions.

Set to run Oct 5-8 this year, the market said early sales booth registration is up two-and-a-half times as much as last year, and that they had three times as many early badge registrations.

The market also announced an Asian Star Casting Forum for Global Co-productions with presentations and talks from talent agencies from China, Korea and Japan, with an Asian Star’s Night as well on Oct 7. Guests will include representatives from China’s Huayi Brothers Management, Korea’s JYP Entertainment and Japan’s K-DASH.

Other events include a Film Fund Talk, a forum on global film industry infrastructure in Busan, and a Film Investors and Producers Night.

Georgian women focus

On the festival side, the 19th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) has also announced a special programme on The Power of Georgian Women Filmmakers.

It will showcase 12 films from leading women in the Georgian New Wave, including A Story Of Mountainous Racha, directed in 1930 by Georgia’s first female director, Nutsa Gogoberidze.

Focusing on the unique cinema coming from the historically and currently trouble country, the special programme the festival stated: ”The Power of Georgian Women Filmmakers is not only significant for showing films directed by women but this is an opportunity to show social issues, contradiction, discrimination and conflict seen in Georgia.”

The showcase includes Gogoberidze’s daughter Lana Gogoberidze’s Day Is Longer Than Night, which screened at the Cannes Film Festival, and her granddaughter Salome Alexi’s Felicita, as well as Rusudan Chkonia’s Keep Smiling and Keti Machavariani’s Salt White.

BIFF will run Oct 2-11.

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