Michelle Yeoh, Fan Bingbing, Jeon Do-yeon and Jo In-sung: A Star-Studded Affair as the 31st Busan International Film Festival Opens

[Financial News] The 31st Busan International Film Festival opens today (the 6th), embarking on a dazzling 10-day run with its opening ceremony. At the ceremony, hosted by Kim Min-ha, lead actress of “Pachinko,” Michelle Yeoh received this year’s Asia Film Person of the Year Award, Kim Dong-ho, former chair of the Busan International Film Festival, received the Korean Cinema Award, and director, screenwriter and producer Ann Hui received the Camellia Award. The opening film, director Kim Jong-kwan’s “Day and Night Are for Each Other,” will be screened. Actor Im Si-wan will host the closing ceremony.

This year’s Busan International Film Festival will present a diverse lineup of 316 films from 59 countries, including 69 films in the Community BIFF program. Films will meet audiences across 31 screens at eight theaters around Busan, including the Busan Cinema Center.
Unlike last year, this year’s festival opened on Tuesday, moving its opening day up by one day. In view of audience visits and attendance being concentrated in the first week, the number of screenings from Thursday through Sunday was also increased from four to five per day over those four days.
In its second year, the competition section features 13 Asian films that combine artistic accomplishment with distinctive voices. They include “Between Two Lovers,” a nuanced love-triangle drama by director Nanako Hirose, acclaimed for her skill in moving freely between fiction and documentary, and “Descendant” by Chen Jiwon, a talented Chinese independent-film director. Also in the lineup are “Names Carved in the Sea” by Yosep Anggi Noen, showcasing the scale and strength of Indonesian cinema; “Bread and Books,” which could become a new signature work by Iran’s celebrated director Majid Majidi; and “Taeju of That Day” by extraordinary newcomer director Im Ha-yeon.
The Busan Awards will be presented in five categories for these films, with seven jurors, including jury chair Zhang Yimou, selecting the winners. The winner of the Busan Award Grand Prize will be eligible for submission to the U.S. Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.

A host of prominent figures from the global film industry will also be visiting Busan.
Actor and director Maggie Gyllenhaal, who is chairing the competition jury at this year’s Venice International Film Festival, will visit Korea for the first time. Academy Award-winning director Alfonso Cuarón, along with France’s leading actors Isabelle Huppert and Charlotte Gainsbourg, will also come to Busan. Major figures from Korea and abroad will take part in this year’s festival, including Iran’s leading director Majid Majidi, Filipino master Lav Diaz, Japanese animation luminary Rintaro, and Korean directors Lee Chang-dong, Na Hong-jin and Kim Jee-woon.
Special program offerings also add to the festival’s richness. “Beautiful Days, Ahn


Sung-ki,” honoring the late actor’s legacy in Korean cinema; “Japanese Animation Special: Masterpieces of Madness, 12+1 Thrillingly Anticipated Works,” spanning the past and present of Japanese animation; and “Michelle Yeoh Across All Time and Space,” highlighting the film career of the world-renowned actor, are among the diverse special programs awaiting audiences.

The opening film is “Day and Night Are for Each Other,” directed by Kim Jong-kwan. At a press conference held on the 6th at the Busan Cinema Center’s mid-size theater, director Kim said he was “happy to be able to present my film at such an illustrious occasion as the opening ceremony of the Busan International Film Festival,” sharing his feelings about the film’s selection as the opener.
“Day and Night Are for Each Other” is a film about conversations among four couples in a single cafe. Its treatment of several couples’ stories in a confined space connects it to director Kim’s earlier film “The Table” (2017).
The Busan International Film Festival emphasized that the film is “a work in which the world that creator Kim Jong-kwan has spent so long and so painstakingly honing has reached maturity.”

A forum for discussing the present and future of film will also be held. Forum BIFF will take place from the 8th to the 11th at the Film Industry Center and the Busan Community Media Center. Under the theme “Talking About the Possibilities of Contemporary Cinema,” it will take stock of the state of film amid rapidly changing industrial, technological and policy conditions, and explore what lies ahead.
Asia Contents & Film Market (ACFM), a business platform for Asia’s film and content industries, will be held from the 10th to the 13th at BEXCO’s Exhibition Center 2. A total of 64 programs will be held across seven sections: The A, Asia Project Market (APM), Busan Story Market (BSM), InnoAsia, Producer Hub, Doc Square and Platform Busan. Thailand will participate in the guest-country program, introduced for the first time this year, highlighting new trends and possibilities in Asia’s content industry.






[email protected] Shin Jin-a Reporter