The Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan) wrapped its 4th Network of Asian Fantastic Films (NAFF) yesterday (July 20) with the main Bucheon Award going to Indonesian director Joko Anwar’s Modus Anomali.

The award comes with a KW10m ($9,500) cash prize.

Head of NAFF Thomas Nam said, “We had an unprecedented total of 308 one-on-one business meetings this year, which makes it the biggest success since the launch of NAFF in 2008.”

This year, NAFF and Hong Kong Asian Film Financing Forum (HAF) also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to establish a more formal relationship between PiFan and the Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF).

The MOU highlights developing ties between genre film producers and directors from both project markets and actively conducting financial and academic exchanges. NAFF will create a NAFF Award at HAF starting next year, and invite the winner to the following It Project market.

This year’s It Project jury was made up of Mathew Tang, Head of Productions at Edko Films, Gloria Fan, executive producer at Mosaic Media Group, Yuji Sadai, head of Bitters End, and Michelle Son, managing director of M-Line Distribution.

Bucheon Award winner Modus Anomali follows a man who wakes up buried alive and finds he is being hunted by the surviving members of a family he took as victim to his serial murders. To be shot in one location with three actors, the film is budgeted at $250,000.

Director Joko Anwar describes it as his dream project and that it will be his “first stab at pure slasher” after genre mash-up films such as Kala, which was the PiFan Closing Film in 2007. Anwar’s horror film The Forbidden Door also won the Best of Puchon Award in 2009.

Sponsored by Daisy Entertainment, the Daisy Award of KW20m ($19,000) went to Human Resources by Korean director Choi Hyoung-Rock, who also took the Lead Sound post-production services award.

Josh Kim’s Korean project Whatever Happened to the Guy Stuck in the Elevator won the NAFF Award with its KW5m ($4,800) cash prize.

The KBAS Award with KW5m ($4,800) went to Underground by Cho Eun-sung.

Sponsors Moneff and Macrograph awarded their post-production support to A Girl with Sushi Knife by Kim Sung-ho, and the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) gave Two Rabbits in Osaka by Lim Tai-hyung its post-production support.

NAFF also held forum discussions on New Media, Korea-Japan coproduction and fantastic sci-fi.

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