PiFan will have 20 world premieres, including Kim Min-sook and Lee Jung-gook's Resurrection of the Butterfly in competition, 26 international premieres, and 57 Asian premieres including Koldo Serra's The Backwoods. The festival will screen 215 films from 33 countries during its 10-day run July 12-21.
With the Yubari and Tokyo fantastic film festivals in precarious states, PiFan is considered Asia 's de facto top fest of its genre.
The fest is also continuing the Industry Screenings which it started in 2002, showcasing films in the selection for distributors.
'Most films in the PiFan selection are genre and mainstream films, so it makes sense that they would be interesting for buyers,' noted festival director Han Sang-joon, saying he looks forward to carefully nurturing the market side and the international focus of PiFan in the fest's second decade.
Special programs and retrospectives include sections on Italian horror master Dario Argento, French Sci-fi, B-movie legend Monte Hellman, Korean poet and director Lee Bong Rae, and a special effects make-up workshop with experts who worked with the likes of Jackie Chan, Bong Joon-ho, and Stephen Chow.
For the first time, a number of PiFan selections will go on tour in Northern Gyeonggi Province afterwards, in cooperation with the Gyeonggi Film Commission.
The fest has a budget of approximately $2.9m this year.
No comments yet