Busan Transforms into a City of Cinema Again

Busan International Film Festival Opens Today with Opening Ceremony... Red Carpet Resumes
Starting with 'Haengbok-ui Nara-ro', 223 Films from Over 70 Countries to be Screened

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) opens today (the 6th) with an opening ceremony and will run for ten days. The opening ceremony will be held at 6 p.m. at the outdoor theater of the Busan Haeundae Cinema Center, hosted by actors Song Joong-ki and Park So-dam. The red carpet event, which was not held last year due to the impact of COVID-19, will resume. The closing ceremony is also planned to be held in person.

The opening film is director Im Sang-soo's Happiness. It depicts a special journey of prisoner number 203 (Choi Min-sik) and Nam-sik (Park Hae-il) as they seek their last happiness in life. Originally planned as a remake of the German film Knockin' on Heaven's Door, director Im personally wrote the screenplay and directed it. The Cannes International Film Festival, where it was first screened last year, described it as "a work full of melancholy and sadness," adding, "Some scenes give the film another dimension. Director Im Sang-soo's self-deprecating humor also stands out."

Movie still cut from 'Haengbok-ui Nara-ro' (To the Land of Happiness)

Starting with Happiness, the festival will screen 223 films from over 70 countries across 29 screens in six theaters. In accordance with COVID-19 prevention guidelines, only half of the total seats will be operated. The number of screenings per film is set at 2 to 3 times, as before the pandemic. Eleven films will compete in the New Currents section. These include The Director is Absent by Arvand Dashtaraei (Iran), Two Women Wearing the Same Underwear by Kim Se-in (Korea), Memory Land by Kim Qui Bui (Vietnam/Germany), Photocopier by Regas Banuteja (Indonesia), Red Pomegranate by Sharifa Urazbayeva (Kazakhstan), Seire by Park Kang (Korea), Asteroid by Mehdi Hosseinvand Aalipour (Iran), House of Time by Rajdeep Paul and Sarmistha Maity (India), Disappearance by Katayama Shinzo (Japan), Hello, My Hometown by Wang Erzhou (China), and Pedro by Natesh Hegde (India). The jury president is the Indian master director Deepa Mehta.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Community BIFF, which has been held mainly around Nampo-dong in Jung-gu, Busan, will expand throughout Busan. Through the newly established 'Neighborhood BIFF,' films will be screened in fourteen local communities. However, the Asian Film Fund, Asian Film Academy, and Platform Busan will be suspended again this year due to the impact of COVID-19, following last year. The festival will conclude on the evening of the 15th with the screening of the closing film Mayday by director Leung Lok-man (Hong Kong/China).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.