Since its launch in 1996, the Busan International Film Festival has served as a platform for quite a few emerging cinematic trends in Asia. It’s here, for example, that critics and programmers were first awakened of the presence of the so-called Sixth Generation Chinese directors; quite a few young cineastes from Central Asia and Mongolia, meanwhile, took their first steps towards international prominence by appearing at the festival. It’s a track record that allows the festival to lay claim to its philosophy of “seeing Asian cinema through Asian eyes”.
This was perhaps the reason why the festival upped its ante this year with the launch of a full-fledged competition to mark its 30th edition. No longer content with merely hosting its much-revered “New Currents” awards for upcoming filmmakers, Busan’s new festival director Jung Han-seok took the very bold step of opening up its top-tier contest to all filmmakers, regardless of their experience. Speaking to The Film Verdict before the festival, Jung said the decision was made so as to “encourage global filmmakers to be more interested in Asian cinema and motivated to visit Busan”.
Moving its dates this year to mid-September to avoid clashing with the National Sports Festival and the traditional mid-autumn festivities – a change which led to an increased proximity to Venice and Toronto, and a near-complete overlap with San Sebastián – the festival was left with more of a mountain to climb in its attempt to nail down world premieres for the line-up of its inaugural competition. The festival eventually arrived at a 14-title slate comprised of four films which have already bowed (or even won awards) elsewhere, plus ten others from directors of very diverse statures.
In the end, experience triumphed in the shape of top-prize winner Gloaming in Luomu, the 15th feature of Korean-Chinese filmmaker Zhang Lu. And deservingly so: rather than sticking to his long-running slow-and-subtle playbook, the 63-year-old burnished his trademark literary drama with sonic and visual experimentation. Zhang’s film could be seen as mirroring (and expanding on) an approach nurtured by his younger counterparts such as Bi Gan, who was also present in competition at Busan with his latest film, the Cannes prize-winner Resurrection.
Another industry veteran who emerged victorious in Busan is Shu Qi, who won the Best Director award with Girl. While the Taiwanese actor-turned-helmer had spoken frankly about being influenced by her mentor Hou Hsiao-hsien – with whom she worked on Millennium Mambo, Three Times and The Assassin – her first stab at directing was anything but derivative. While Shu peppered the first 15 minutes of her film with a wealth of visual references to Hou’s work, Girl soon morphed into a poised and heartfelt drama about a pre-teen’s attempt to break out of her the toxic environment at home by emulating the free-spirited nature of a new friend.
While the jury might still be out about the impact of the competition in enhancing the international edge of the festival, this new initiative has proved to be largely positive for domestic filmmakers. Beyond providing the opportunity for homegrown directors to compete for and win awards alongside festival big-hitters, the competition became more or less a showcase for the diversity of Korean films on offer.
Leading the way is Han Chang-lok’s Funky Freaky Freaks, which was bestowed with the Grand Jury Prize. Revolving around the manic misadventures of a trio of high-schoolers as they go to extreme lengths to distract themselves from their real-life problems, the film is a zany, barrier-breaking spectacle which tackled adolescent trauma in a drastically different way than Shu’s Girl.
Hard on Han’s heels is the Korean Academy of Film Arts graduate Yoo Jae-in, whose En Route To brought home both a Best New Currents award for herself and a Best Actor prize for Lee Ji-won. Veering away from its beginnings as a teenage-pregnancy drama, Yoo refuses to condemn her protagonists – the pregnant student (played by Sim Su-bin) and her goofy best friend (Lee) – to a simplistic, miserabilist existence. Rather, the duo’s resilience and solidarity shines through.
The other two Korean films in competition are present as if merely to illustrate the wide spectrum of domestic filmmakers at work today. A lavish, commercial romantic drama through and through, Lim Sun-ae’s 7 O’Clock Breakfast Meeting for the Heartbroken was perhaps placed in competition more because of the presence of its A-list star Bae Suzy than its content. The film certainly sits very much at odds with Lee Je-han’s By Another Name, a modest-budgeted and unfortunately uninspiring indie production about a dying filmmaker’s last wishes and his widow’s attempt to realise them.
Busan’s intention of highlighting the creativity and dynamism of the Korean film industry – and its thinly-veiled allusion to the festival’s central role in it – was there from the get-go. The opening ceremony started an hour late because of the endless throng of Korean filmmakers marching down the red carpet, all of them name-checked by an on-site host. Alongside international guests such as Jafar Panahi, Guillermo del Toro, Michael Mann, Milla Jovovich and Sylvia Chang, homegrown directors and stars were given an opportunity to take centre stage at the hallowed grand atrium of the Busan Film Center.
Canadian-Korean filmmaker Maggie Kang received a rapturous welcome with a masterclass and a sing-along screening of her Netflix megahit K-Pop Demon Hunters. Meanwhile, the retrospective of work by veteran social-conscious filmmaker Chung Ji-young was also very well-attended. The audience was made up of both pensioners revisiting their youthful memories and young cinephiles rediscovering films from (and about) a previous era.
According to the festival, the admission figures for screenings this year increased year-on-year by about 20,000 to nearly 176,000. Indeed, the enthusiasm at the Busan Cinema Center seemed very much undimmed during the festival’s ten-day run, with even the international press and visitors reporting inability to gain access to screenings. Events such as the “Actors’ House” meetings featuring A-listers Lee Byung-hun and Son Ye-jin were largely sold out, as were the masterclasses by Mann, Marco Bellocchio (who was given a full retrospective by the festival) and Juliette Binoche (in town for the Asian premiere of her directorial debut In-I Motion).
Just as importantly, the festival rebooted its dormant BIFF Forum. Running for four days at the Busan Film & Audiovisual Industry Center, one of the cluster of film-related buildings around the Cinema Center, the talk series comprised nine sessions about topics such as Asian co-productions, the ebbs and flows of Korean cinema during the past 30 years, film education in Korea and Asia, and – in its final session – the “mapping of the future of Korean cinema”. The title of the final talk was “Endangered K-Movie: We Will Find A Way. We Always Have” – a cri du coeur, perhaps, from the Busan International Film Festival itself, as it ventures into its fourth decade.
