Korea’s Busan International Film Festival’s budget is slashed, but its ambition is not

The Busan International Film Festival just started its 20th anniversary run, with plenty of drama on screen and off.

The opening night film on Thursday was the world premiere of the Indian drama “Zubaan,” which tells the story of a young Indian man who moves to a big city to pursue his dream of success as a musician but becomes consumed by bigger questions about his life. The festival’s closer on Oct. 10 is “Mountain Cry,” a Chinese film about a death in a rural community.

Behind the scenes in Busan, there have been changes and controversy. Earlier this year, the Korean Film Council announced it was cutting the festival’s funding by about half, from $1.3 million to $730,720. The council argued that as South Korea’s largest and best-known film festival, BIFF was in less need of government support and the available funds were better off distributed among smaller events.

SIGN UP for the free Indie Focus movies newsletter >>

But festival organizers believe the real reason was their refusal last year to pull the premiere of “The Truth Will Not Sink With Sewol” (original title “Diving Bell”), a documentary that was highly critical of the government’s handling of the 2014 sinking of the Sewol ferry in which more than 300 people died. The film alleged that the government’s rescue effort was poorly organized and executed, and that the country’s mainstream media uncritically relayed the administration’s claim to be doing all it could to save the missing, most of whom were high school students.

Festival director Lee Yong-kwan went ahead with the premiere of “Truth” last year, contending that BIFF has a responsibility to maintain artistic freedom and not withdraw a selection because of pressure. Lee says the funding cut is retribution for his refusal to pull “Truth.”

BIFF is Asia’s largest film festival and the most prominent annual event in this southern port city, South Korea’s largest after the capital Seoul. But this year, the festival has been forced to run a slightly downsized event because of the tighter budget: This year’s festival features screenings of 304 films and 94 premieres, down from 314 screenings and 98 premieres last year.

Although much of the festival’s fare is from China, South Korea and Japan, works from south and central Asia are also featured, with BIFF’s New Currents section premiering eight films from across the continent.

Also notable is the Window on Asian Cinema section, which screens 52 films from 32 Asian countries, with many prominent directors attending, including Hirokazu Koreeda of Japan and Jafar Panahi of Iran.

With most of the country’s big-name premieres taking place at prominent festivals in Europe and elsewhere, BIFF has made its name in being a forum for moviegoers and industry professionals to get a glimpse at under-the-radar works from Asia and around the world.

“The strength of the festival is in providing a sense of what’s new, particularly in Asia,” said Darcy Paquet, a Seoul-based film critic and manager of the website Koreanfilm.org.

European actresses Sophie Marceau and Nastassja Kinski are slated to attend this year’s festival, as is Hollywood star Harvey Keitel, who stars in the new film “Youth” with Michael Caine.

Lee says that many individual and corporate donors stepped up to address this year’s funding shortfall, including Ko Eun-ah, a former actress and chief executive of Seoul Cinema, one of the country’s oldest and best-known theater complexes, who made a personal donation of 100 million won (a little more than $84,000). BIFF also recruited actress Kang Soo-yeon, a South Korean film star, to serve as festival co-director.

Film industry analysts here say the funding cut raises more long-term questions about artistic freedom.

“What made BIFF successful in the past was that its programmers were independent of the government,” said Kim Young-jin, a professor of film studies at Myongji University in Seoul. “In the future there will be other contentious decisions over what films to show, and now there’s a precedent of using funding cuts as a way of exerting pressure over [BIFF’s] content.”

Steven Borowiec is a special correspondent.

ALSO:

‘He Named Me Malala’ is a moving portrait of a Nobel-winning woman

Intense Michael Shannon puts dramatic human face on foreclosure crisis in ’99 Homes’

Ryan Reynolds and Ben Mendelsohn are a strong pair in ‘Mississippi Grind’