Busan International Film Festival

Seduced by "Choked," Asia's Busan Film Festival Transforms

Brian Brooks — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 06:15:12 GMT

For the past sixteen years, the Pusan International Film Festival has often featured fireworks on its opening nights. This year, however, was a little different. The multicolored lights flashing over the heads of audience members were still impressive, but they were electronic, a vast LED light-show that ushered in a year of change for Asia's largest film event, which concludes tonight with the world premiere of Harada Masato's "Chronicle of my Mother." While some changes were largely cosmetic, the festival finally decided to adopt the generally accepted Romanized spelling of its host city and officially became the Busan International Film Festival with a "B"-- others were major.

Since its inception, the festival has been personified, both locally and abroad, by its director, the charismatic Kim Dong-ho. For fifteen years, Kim worked with everyone from international movie stars and industry types to unknown filmmakers and teenage volunteers in his unflagging efforts to promote the festival and Asian cinema. Now, in what appears to be a seamless transition, Kim has passed leadership of the organization to Lee Yong-kwan. One of the founders of the festival, Lee has served in a number of staff roles positions over the years, including senior programmer, deputy director and, for the past three years, co-director alongside Kim. With his calm, soft-spoken demeanor, Lee might not be as lively or omnipresent at parties as his predecessor was, but he'll no doubt be just as busy, especially considering his first year coincides with the opening of the $150 million Busan Cinema Center.

With major construction completed just in time for the festival (supposedly the last bit of scaffolding was removed just a few hours before the crowds arrived for opening night), the brand new Busan Cinema Center boasts two interlocked buildings, nine stories, three indoor theaters, one outdoor theater, a lot of office space and the multicolored, football field-sized LED ceiling that entertained those opening night audiences. Similar in purpose to Toronto's Bell Lightbox but more architecturally ambitious with its futuristic lines, swooping electronic ceiling and vast expanses of open space, the Busan Cinema Center will give the festival a year-round home while forever changing the skyline of Busan's Centum City district. And if a bit of sawdust and plaster still lingered in the air as audiences sat down to watch this year's films, nobody seemed to mind.

Considering that the eight-day festival features over 300 films, it was surprising how quickly the critical conscientious anointed Kim Joong-hyun's "Choked" as one of the strongest films of the festival. By the end of the second day, the Korean film seemed to be on everyone's must-see list. Exploring the tensions between financial and familial responsibilities as they come to bear on an estranged mother and her adult son, "Choked" marks an auspicious debut for Kim, who confidently ratchets up the tension as his cast of characters becomes ever more desperate for emotional debt relief.

"Choked" was one of thirteen films in the New Currents competitive section, and many assumed it was a foregone conclusion that it would be recognized with the top honors. Festival juries are inscrutable beasts though, and when the awards were announced this morning, it was Morteza Farshbaf’s “Mourning” and Loy Arcenas "Niño" that got the nods. "Mourning," the story of a deaf couple driving their nephew through the Iranian countryside in the wake of a family tragedy, was one of a number of interesting Iranian production featured throughout the program, examples of the vibrant independent f community in Iran, one worth supporting as the government there becomes increasingly hostile towards them. The film also won the FIPRESCI Award.

"Niño," however, is a more curious choice for the New Current prize. A family melodrama sporting the overly familiar story of a dying patriarch and the family squabbles that ensue, the Philippine film is decently made, but certainly not representative of anything "new" or "current." In their award statement, the jury likened the film to an "aria in an opera," but for many people it was more like a song you hear, maybe hum along to and then immediately forget once it's over.

Another auspicious debut comes from animator Yeon Sang-ho, whose film "The King of Pigs" walked away with three festival awards. In a film that proved divisive amongst festival-goers, two former friends reunite after 15 years apart. Both men are clearly troubled - one has just killed his wife and begun hallucinating - and things do not get any better as they start walking down a particularly disturbing memory lane. Yeon's animation style of bold lines, harsh character designs and a deliberate flatness proved a stumbling block for many viewers, but those who appreciated the look of the film (or managed to look past it) saw an unflinching exploration of the darkness lurking within the Korean male psyche.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul in Busan. Image courtesy of BIFF.

Joining the list of Busan's extracurricular activities, which already includes the renamed Asian Project Market (formerly the Pusan Promotional Plan) and the relocated Asian Film Market, was the Busan Cinema Forum. With the heady goal of "enhancing knowledge and support of the film industry and film aesthetics around the world," the Forum was produced in conjunction with Cashiers du Cinema, so it was appropriate that the keynote speech was given by one of Asia's foremost auteurs, Thailand's Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

In an hour-long speech-cum-slide show entitled "Superabundance," Weerasethakul quoted everyone from Yoda to his 79-year-old mother as he nimbly jumped from topic to topic, sharing his thoughts on his early influences, the future of crowd sourcing, video piracy as an alternative mode of distribution, censorship and the proliferation of the digital image. "My nephew is used to being videotaped since he was born - actually since he popped out of his mother's womb - and his parents trust Sony to remember their son for them," Weerasethakul observed. "We ourselves are also walking cameras...We can shoot video on a whim, so we're part of this giant network of surveillance machines, you and I... With cameras in our hands, we are all directors and actors at the same time," he said to the audience members, many of whom, in true Busan style, were recording his speech on their cameras and smart phones.

The 2011 Busan International Film Festival Award Winners

New Currents Award
Winner: Mourning - Morteza Farshbaf (Iran)
Winner: Niño - Loy Arcenas (Philippines)

Flash Forward Award
Winner: La-Bas. A Criminal Education - Guido Lombardi (Italy)

Sonje Award for Short Films
Winner (Asia): Thug Beram - Venkat Amudhan (India)
Special Mention (Asia): DIY Encouragement - Kohei Yoshino (Japan)
Winner (Korea): See You Tomorrow - Lee Woo-ju (Korea)
Special Mention (Korea): Bugging Heaven; Listen to Her - O Hyun-ju (Korea)

BIFF Mecenat Award for Documentaries
Winner : Sea of Butterfly - Park Bae-il (Korea)
Winner : Shoji & Takao - Yoko Ide (Japan)

KNN Movie Award (Audience Award)
Winner: Watch Indian Circus - Mangesh Hadawale (India)

FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics) Award
Winner: Mourning – Morteza Farshbaf (Iran)

NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) Award
Winner: The King of Pigs – Yeun Sang Ho (Korea)

Busan Cinephile Award
Winner: The Twin - Gustav Danielsson (Sweden)

Citizen Reviewers’ Award
Blue Pine Tree: Jesus Hospital - Lee Sangcheol and Shin Aga (Korea)
Red Pine Tree: A Fish - Park Hong-Min (Korea)
Yellow: Romance Joe - Lee Kwan (Korea)

DGK Award
Directors Award: The King of Pigs - Yeun Sang Ho (Korea)
Actor: Beautiful Miss Jin - Ha Hyun Kwan (Korea)
Actress: Jesus Hospital - Han Song Hee and Whang Jungmin (Korea)

CGV Movie Collage Award
Winner: The King of Pigs - Yeun Sang Ho (Korea)

[Doug Jones is Associate Director of Programming for Film Independent’s Los Angeles Film festival.]

In Pusan, Fest Guru Kim Heads Out; "Musan," "Night" & "Pure" Take Top Nods

Peter Knegt — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 05:16:31 GMT

Midway through this year's Pusan International Film Festival, while accepting his honorary title of Asian Filmmaker of the Year, Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang gave voice to the sentiments of many festival attendees. "I am honored, but also truly sad, for Kim Dong-ho is retiring after this festival." Festival Director of South Korea's largest film festival since its inception in 1996, the soft-spoken, seemingly tireless Kim is stepping down after fifteen years at the helm. In Pusan, Kim is his own celebrity, with admirers stopping him for autographs along with the local and international celebs attending his festival. Underscoring Kim's importance -- not just to the festival or even Korean cinema but to Asian cinema at large -- at some point nearly every event at this year's festival, which ends today after nine days of movies, project markets and a record number of premieres, became an impromptu tribute to Kim, beginning with the Opening Night ceremony and the unveiling of a festival trailer featuring an animated Kim zipping through the streets of Bussan on the back of a scooter.

Throughout the week, wherever he went (and, as Pusan regulars know, he goes everywhere) Kim was feted, serenaded, presented with plaques and flowers, and, of course, toasted with countless glasses of soju. Reassuring everyone that the beloved festival director will remain in their hearts and minds even after he no longer has that title, Tsai concluded his remarks by saying, "Mr. Kim will not leave us," a sentiment that Kim himself echoes, albeit in more practical terms.

"I believe I have a responsibility to provide whatever type of advice or help I can. As somebody who established and led the festival for the past fifteen years, I'm not in a position where I can just ignore the future of the festival," Kim explained during a brief respite in his busy schedule. His successor will not be officially named until February, but Kim is convinced the transition will be a smooth one. Pointing to Lee Yong-Kwan role as Co-Festival Director, Kim explained, "We began preparing the festival for my possible retirement four years ago." And what is he preparing for himself? "At the moment, I don't have a particular concrete plan. I might like to interview the master directors from all around the world and capture their thoughts on cinema."

If Kim decides to broaden the scope of his documentary to include promising newcomers, he could begin with the winners of this year's New Currents competition--Yoon Sung-hyun and Park Jung-bum.

Running its narrative on parallel tracks, Bleak Night, Yoon Sung-hyun's award-winning feature debut, traces the decay of three high schoolers' friendship, which ultimately leads to the tragic death of one of them, while also following the dead boy's father as he tries to make sense of it all. Yoon shows remarkable restraint in his storytelling, never revealing details other films would highlight and emerging with a film that finds its power in what's left unsaid.

One of three films at this year's festival that dealt with the plight of North Korean immigrant in South Korea, Park Jung-bum's The Journals of Musan, which also won the festival's FIPRESCI Award, follows a downtrodden defector who simply can't get comfortable in his new country. As played by the director himself, the man tries to find solace in work, in church, even in karaoke, but like his factory-issued North Korean jacket, nothing seems to fit. Tempering his character's at times painfully realized awkwardness with a delicate thread of understated humor, Park directs himself into giving one the festival's most memorable performances.

Another exciting debut was that of Sivaroj Kongsakul from Thailand. Beginning with its arresting opening sequence--18 minutes without a word spoken--Kongsakul's Eternity brings a lyrical, leisurely rhythm to its observance of the blossoming romance between a young man and his bride-to-be. Intimate without ever being obtrusive, Kongsakul allows his film to quietly build an emotion resonance that can only fully be appreciated once the entire film is over.

To appreciate the full spectrum of contemporary Thai cinema, a double feature of the decidedly art house Eternity and Waist Sasanatieng's box office fodder The Red Eagle would be required--just not really recommended. A reboot of a popular franchise from the Sixties, The Red Eagle is an action film about a masked vigilante and his one-man war against an evil secret society. Unfortunately, the real battle seems to be raging within the film itself. The audacious style Sasanatieng displayed in earlier films like Tears of the Black Tiger or Citizen Dog can only be glimpsed sporadically throughout Red Eagle, buried beneath a barrage of generic gun play and hilariously blatant product placement.

Sasanatieng fares much better with Iron Pussy: A Kimchi Affair, his episode of Camellia, the Busan-set, international-produced omnibus film that closes this year's festival. Relocating Thai's top cross-dressing, time travelling government assassin from Bangkok (where she was initially conceived by performance artist Michael Shaowanasai and brought to the big screen by Apichatpong Weerasethakul) to Busan, Iron Pussy is a playfully camp amalgamation of visual gags, musical numbers, and kitschy spy vs. spy maneuverings. Far more subdued is Japanese Yukisada Isao's entry Kamome, in which a cinematographer spends a night wandering the streets with a shoeless Japanese girl, as if in a slightly more mysterious version of Before Sunrise. Marking Jang Joon-hwan's first directorial effort since his acclaimed debut Save the Green Planet, Love for Sale, the final bit, follows its hero as he rages through Busan's love underground, determined to bring the illicit trade in stolen memories--particularly his own of his one true love--to a end. There's more style than substance to Joon-hwan's entry--which worked fine for Sasanatieng, who had his tongue planted firmly in his Iron Pussy cheek--but unfortunately the material here is approached with a seriousness that promises poignancy it can't deliver. Although both Yukisada and Joon-hwan's segments have their strengths, ultimately it's Sasanatieng's that will stay with most viewers for its sheer sense of fun and, of course, for the octopus phone. Oh, did I not mention the octopus phone?

A complete list of winners can be found on the next page.

[Doug Jones is Associate Director of Programming for Film Independent's Los Angeles Film Festival.]

Pusan International Film Festival Award Winners

New Currents Award
Winner: The Journals of Musan – Directed by Park Jung-Bum (Korea)
Winner : Bleak Night. Directed by Yoon Sung-Hyun (Korea)

Flash Forward Award
Winner : Pure. Directed by Lisa Lngseth (Sweden)
Special Mention : Erratum. Directed by Marek Lechki (Poland)

Sonje Award for Short Films
Winner : Broken Night. Directed by Yang Hyojoo (Korea)
Winner : Inhalation. Directed by Edmund Yeo (Malaysia / Japan)
Special Mention: Unfunny Game. Directed by Park Jongchul (Korea)
Special Mention: The Journey. Directed by Yim Kyungdong (Korea)

PIFF Mecenat Award for Documentaries
Winner : Miracle on Jongno Street. Directed by Lee Hyuk-sang (Korea)
Winner : New Castle . Directed by Guo Hengqi (China)

FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics) Award
Winner : The Journals of Musan. Directed by Park Jung-bum (Korea)

NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) Award
Winner : Dooman River. Directed by Zhang Lu (Korea)

KNN Movie Award (Audience Award)
Winner : My Spectacular Theatre. Directed by Lu Yang (China)

WORLD CINEMA REPORT: Another "Crouching Tiger": Korea Sustains Boom with Blockbusters and Auteurs

Indiewire — Thu, 22 Aug 2002 06:00:00 GMT

WORLD CINEMA REPORT: Another "Crouching Tiger": Korea Sustains Boom with Blockbusters and Auteurs

by Anthony Kaufman

(indieWIRE: 08.22.02) -- Watch out, Hollywood. Add South Korea to a growing list of national cinemas (see France and India) with the right dose of big-budget blockbusters and prolific auteurs to draw in local audiences and stir up international interest. Last year, homegrown works nabbed the top five spots at the country's box office with an estimated 49.1 percent market share, beating out American studio product like "Shrek," "Harry Potter," and "Pearl Harbor." And all over the world, Korean masters like Im Kwon Taek (best director at Cannes 2002 for "Chihwaseon") and new mavericks like Kim Ki-Duk ("The Isle," opening in the U.S. this Friday from Empire Pictures) and Hong Sang-Soo ("Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors," screening this week in the New York Korean Film Festival) have received critical praise and festival accolades.

The first half of 2002 shows the trend continuing: grandmother/son drama "The Way Home," detective thriller "Public Enemy," and sci-fi pic "2009 Lost Memories" are among the top five grossing films. Plus, a staggering four Korean features have been bought for Hollywood remakes (see Why Studio Remakes Don't Suck; U.S. Versions Rebound Foreign Originals); "Flight of the Bee" director Min Boung-hun's "Let's Not Cry" received special jury and FIPRESCI prizes at last month's Karlovy Vary Film Festival; "Peppermint Candy" director Lee Chang-Dong's latest "Oasis" will premiere at Venice next month, and new movies from Kim Ki-Duk ("Bad Guy"), Hong Sang-Soo ("Turning Gate," screening at the New York Film Festival) and controversial "Lies" director Jang Sun-Woo ("Resurrection of the Little Match Girl") all reflect an unrelenting pace.

Referred to more than once on the festival circuit (reductively) as the "fishhook film," Kim Ki-Duk's "The Isle" is much more: a lyrical, beautifully realized meditation on pain, pleasure and devotion, inflected with a subtle dark sense of humor. (Fishhooks enter orifices that will make you squirm, yes, like a fish.) A self-taught filmmaker, Kim began generating attention with his third feature "Birdcage Inn." His 2001 work "Address Unknown" screened at Venice last year, and with "The Isle" finally washing up on these shores, his reputation as a Korean director with international appeal should be solidified.

"Bad Guy," Kim's seventh feature in six years, has already opened in Korea. The story, about a pimp who tries to turn a college girl into a prostitute, has become the writer-director's most successful work to date. Darcy Paquet, a Korean correspondent for Screen International, credits the film's domestic success to several factors, including increased marketing, Kim's own growing status, and the presence of actor Jo Je-hyun, a rising member of the nation's flourishing star system. Kim is already at work on his next film, "The Shoreline," which will star bona-fide Korean celebrity Jang Dong-Gun ("Friend," "2009 Lost Memories") and will likely boost the box-office potential for the once-marginalized filmmaker. (In Korea, it's worth noting action stars Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jackie Chan have all been supplanted by locals like Jang, Han Suk-Kyu, Lee Jung Jae, and Jung Woo-Sung.)

The recent phenomenon of the Korean blockbuster -- and all the money and fervor it's generated -- has contributed to an upswing for films, both big and small. "It can be said that the appearance of low-budget art films is a side effect of the Korean hit movies and the concentration of capital in the film industry," says Noh Kwang Woo, a correspondent for the Korean Film Commission and a coordinator of this year's New York Korean Film Festival. Further proof of the run-off can be found in the building of a new sound studio (to be the nation's largest) in the city of Busan, and the Korean Film Commission's undertaking of a new digital fiction feature fund, contributing up to $25,000 to independent DV narratives.

Some skeptics wonder how long Korea's boom can last. A recent article in Variety postulated that soaring budgets (U.S. $5-$8.5 million) were not sustainable, given the relatively small Korean movie-going population and the limited market for such films overseas. But Noh describes a situation in which increased international co-productions will sustain growth. While inaugural blockbusters "Shiri" and "Joint Security Area" may have been financed by single domestic companies, Noh contends that "co-production and co-financing may be more dominant." Noh adds that "though the rate of profit of big budget films is not as high as expected, there still will be big hit movies such as 'Friend' and 'My Sassy Girl,' which are produced with relatively lower budgets."

But "Friend," Kwak Kyung-taek's top-grossing epic tale of four friends-turned-gangsters, screening as part of the New York Korean Film Festival, may aspire to the scope and style of a Scorsese, it still lacks the emotion and pull of its American equivalent. Other genre efforts and U.S. premieres at the fest, such as "Guns and Talks" and "No Blood, No Tears," are sure to offer some thrills, but little else. In fact, judging from the programming