BUSAN, Oct. 7 (Korea Bizwire) – The Busan International Film Festival opened Thursday with the Korean film industry still divided over the event’s artistic freedom and political independence. The festival runs until next Saturday, and will feature 299 films from 69 countries, a scale almost as large as last year’s 304 films from 75 countries [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 19 (Korea Bizwire) – A number of world-class movie directors and actors will make appearances at Asia’s largest film festival to be held in South Korea’s largest port city in October, the event’s organizing committee said Monday. This year’s Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), set to run from Oct. 6 to 15 in [...]
BUSAN, May 20 (Korea Bizwire) – The Busan Metropolitan Government will partner with China’s Wanda Group to raise 100 billion won for use in future Korea-China film productions. The city revealed Friday that it had agreed on specific investment terms for the joint-production fund with Wanda Group representatives including chairman Wang Jianlin. Busan mayor Suh Byung-soo [...]
“I once felt much burden due to the title. I wanted to get rid of and overcome it, but couldn’t.” “I think I have to live with the title as long as I work as an actress because Cannes’ best actress was such a huge award.” “I used to be called ‘box-office princess of the [...]
BUSAN, Oct. 1 (Korea Bizwire) — The Busan International Film Festival will open in the southern port city of Busan on Thursday, celebrating its 20th anniversary with a rich lineup of films and celebrities. Founded in 1996, it unarguably has developed into Asia’s largest film festival with a budget of about 12 billion won (US$10 [...]
“The Cannes International Film Festival fully supports BIFF and its executive director Lee Yong-kwan, putting all our honor on this. Outside forces should not have any influence on the programming of a film festival. A film festival should make its own decision on whether it likes a film or not.” - Thierry Fremaux, director of [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 13 (Korea Bizwire) — A movie industry task force on Friday lodged a protest over the authorities’ alleged attempt to oust the executive director of the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) for his decision to screen a politically sensitive documentary during last year’s film festival. “The authorities should stop all attempts to damage [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 26 (Korea Bizwire) – The Busan city government’s alleged pressure on the director of the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) to step down have sparked fierce backlash from the local film circle. Citing film industry sources, local dailies reported Saturday that a high-ranking official in the Busan city government recently met with BIFF [...]