The Busan International Film Festival opened October 6 in Busan, South Korea, and runs through October 15. It’s the festival’s 31st edition and its first since the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF), the body that accredits international film festivals, gave it A-list status. That puts Busan in the same tier as Cannes, Berlin and Venice.
Busan also has a new link to the Oscars. The winner of its Busan Award Grand Prize, the top honor in the festival’s competition section, now has a route to the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. The competition is in its second year, with 14 Asian films and a jury chaired by Chinese director Zhang Yimou. More than 240 films from 59 countries are screening across the festival.
No Filipino film is in that main competition. The Philippines has three titles elsewhere in the program.
Ria
Arvin Belarmino’s Ria is having its world premiere in Vision-Asia, the festival’s competitive section for independent Asian filmmakers. It is the only Filipino title among the section’s 11 films. Starring Nour Hooshmand, it follows a folk-punk musician fighting to save a community from demolition and corruption. The film is a co-production of the Philippines, the Netherlands, Norway, Saudi Arabia and Japan.
Ria is Belarmino’s first feature. His short Agapito, co-directed with Kyla Danelle Romero, competed at Cannes and is one of three films the Film Academy of the Philippines is backing for the Oscars this cycle, in the Best Live-Action Short category.
58th
Carl Joseph Papa’s 58th, an animated documentary on the 2009 Maguindanao massacre, screens in the Documentary Showcase of the Wide Angle section. Glaiza De Castro and the late Ricky Davao lend their voices. The film had its Philippine premiere at Cinemalaya, split Best Picture at the Manila International Film Festival in September, and has the Film Academy’s backing for Best Documentary Feature.
Filipiñana
Rafael Manuel’s Filipiñana, the Philippines’ official submission for Best International Feature Film at the 99th Academy Awards, is also on the Busan program. The film follows Isabel, a teenage “tee girl” who sets up golf balls for members of an exclusive Manila golf club. It won the Special Jury Award for Creative Vision at Sundance in January and played the Berlin International Film Festival in February.
Beyond the Screenings
Lav Diaz, the Filipino director behind Norte, the End of History and The Woman Who Left, is among the guests giving master classes this year. The festival’s industry market, the Asian Contents & Film Market, runs October 10 to 13, where sales agents and distributors buy and finance Asian films.