Busan Film Festival Sets Park Chan-wook Scripted Netflix Title ‘Uprising’ as Opener, Expands Program Despite Slashed Funding
The Busan International Film Festival will expand its screening program by some 8% in what it calls “an effort to maintain a scale befitting Asia’s top film festival.” This is despite a 50% cut in government financial support.
The festival will open on Oct. 2 with “Uprising,” a star-studded period drama from Netflix that was scripted and produced by Park Chan-wook (“Oldboy”) and directed by Kim Sang-man.
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It will close on Oct. 11 with the Eric Khoo-directed “Spirit World,” which the Singaporean director shot in Japan with French icon Catherine Deneuve in the lead role.
“Uprising” involves a servant (played by Gang Dong-won) and his master, the som of a noble family with military connections. While they agree that the servant should be free, complications arise. The film also stars Cha Seung-won, Kim Shin-rock, Jin Sun-kyu and Jung Sung-il. “With Park Chan-wook’s signature humor oozing through the well-woven narrative, full of intense conflict and tension, the film is fueled with powerful and compelling energy that truly stands out,” said the festival selectors.
The festival will give its prestigious Asian Filmmaker of the Year Award to Japan’s Kurosawa Kiyoshi, whose “Cloud” recently premiered at Venice and whose “Serpent’s Path” will have its international premiere in San Sebastian. Busan will play both movies.
The festival said that it will screen 224 titles (features and shorts, included) in its official selection. There will be an additional 55 films in its community outreach program. To cope with the expanded lineup, the festival will use 28 screens at seven venues, including the KOFIC Theater, close to the main festival centre in the Centum area.
Despite the high-profile and ‘soft power’ impact of Korea’s entertainment sector, state funding for the arts has been cut under the current government. The Busan festival has had to seek greater commercial sponsorship and private funding, a task that was made harder after last year’s internal infighting spilled into the public domain. In January, the festival appointed veteran Park Kwang-su as chairman, but left Pak Dosin as deputy director and is still without a permanent festival director.
In the build-up to Tuesday’s press announcement, the festival had already announced a retrospective for Miguel Gomes, a tribute to the late Korean star Lee Sun-kyun and the launch of a ‘Teen Spirit, Teen Movie’ section.
It had also revealed the selection for its two main competition sections, New Currents and Jiseok.
Nevertheless, other novelties, such as the launch of a Documentary Audience Award, worth KRW10,000,000 ($7,500) and the bulk of the non-competitive programming remained to be announced.
The festival’s five main gala slots go to Kurosawa’s “Cloud” and “Serpent’s Path,” Jia Zhangke’s “Caught by the Tides,” Gomes’ “Grand Tour” and Patricia Mazuy’s “Visiting Hours.”
Across the different non-competitive sections Busan will showcase works by European directors including Bruno Dumont’s “The Empire,” which won the Silver Bear Jury Prize at Berlin; Sean Baker’s “Anora,” the Palme d’Or winner at Cannes; Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Perez,” a Cannes Jury Prize winner; “Suspended Time,” by Olivier Assayas; “Misericordia,” by Alain Guiraudie; and “Limonov: The Ballad of Eddie,” by Kirill Serebrennikov. Raoul Peck’s documentary “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” also plays.
Noteworthy films from Sundance Film Festival include: Netflix’s “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” which swept the documentary directing award and the audience award; “Girls Will Be Girls,” the recipient of the World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award; and “Kneecap,” winner of the NEXT Award.
From Berlin, Busan has scooped up the Palestinian documentary “No Other Land”; “Memories of a Burning Body,” which won the Panorama audience award, and the Iranian film “My Favorite Cake,” winner of the Ecumenical Prize and the FIPRESCI Prize.
From Cannes, the festival has pulled in Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light,” which won the Jury Prize; “The Substance,” starring Demi Moore, which won the best screenplay award; Guan Hu’s “Black Dog,” which won the Un Certain Regard Prize; “The Damned” and “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl,” which shared the best director prize in the Un Certain Regard section; Boris Lojkine’s “Souleymane’s Story,” which won both the jury and best actor prizes; “Shameless,” winner of the best actress award; “Armand,” which won the Camera d’Or; “Mongrel”; Yamanaka Yoko’s “Desert of Namibia,” which was invited to the Directors’ Fortnight and won the FIPRESCI prize; and “Blue Sun Palace,” which was honored with the French Touch Prize of the Jury at the Critics’ Week.
Furthermore, “Drowning Dry,” the winner of the best director award at Locarno, and Nelicia Low’s “Pierce,” which won the Crystal Globe at the Karlovy Vary festival, will make their way to Busan.
Asian films that garnered attention at major festivals are also being featured. These include: the Sundance International Film Festival hit “Black Box Diaries,” which depicts the #MeToo movement of a Japanese journalist; the Iranian documentary “My Stolen Planet,” invited to the Panorama section at Berlin; and the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival hit “XiXi”. From the Cannes festival Un Certain Regard section, the Indian film “Santosh,” the Vietnamese film “Viet and Nam,” and the Japanese film “My Sunshine” are invited to Busan. From the Directors’ Fortnight, the animated film “Ghost Cat Anzu” was invited. “In Retreat” was invited from Cannes’ ACID section.
Busan’s lineup also has several films that premiere at the ongoing Venice festival: Deepak Rauniyar’s “Pooja, Sir” and Sora Neo’s “Happyend” are from the Orizzonti competition. Nader Saeivar’s new film “The Witness” – which was invited to the BIFF’s New Currents section two years ago – has been invited to Venice’s Orizzonti Extra section. In addition, “Don’t Cry, Butterfly,” directed by Dieu Linh Duong, a 2016 Busan AFA graduate, was selected for the Venice Critics’ Week and will appear in Busan. Igarashi Kohei’s “Super Happy Forever” and Jiang Xiaoxuan’s “To Kill a Mongolian Horse,” both from Venice Days section, make it to Busan. So too does “The Colors Within,” the animation by Yamada Naoko, which previously played at Annecy.
Other non-Asian titles also make the transition include: “Universal Language,” directed by Matthew Rankin, “Wild Diamond,” the first feature of female director Agathe Riedinger that was in competition at Cannes Film Festival; “The Girl with the Needle,” which caused a stir among the competition section for its shocking subject matter; “Ghost Trail,” which opened the Critics’ Week; and “When the Light Breaks,” which opened the Un Certain Regard section.
The post-apocalyptic musical “The End,” directed by Joshua Oppenheimer (“The Act of Killing”), will also be featured. Another highlight is “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat,” a jazz political documentary by Johan Grimonprez, and much decorated animation film “Flow,” directed by Gints Zilbalodis, are set to attend Busan.
One of the hottest films in India during the first half of 2024, “Kalki 2898 AD,” will be screened at the outdoor theater. It stars Prabhas, Kamal Haasan and Deepika Padukone.
“RM: Right People, Wrong Place,” which documents BTS leader RM’s process of creating his first solo album, and where RM shares his more personal side during the eight months leading up to his military enlistment, will play at an outdoor screening.
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