One of Asia's biggest film festivals is set to kick off in Korea's port city of Busan. Celebrities will be out in force and the annual event will feature more than 260 movies, including some award-winning Korean and other Asian films.
The curtains will go up on the annual international film festival this Thursday in the southeastern port city of Busan. The nine-day event, dubbed PIFF, will open with "2046", a Hong Kong film directed by Wong Kar-wei, and will close with the Korean film "The Scarlet Letter", starring the renowned actor Han Seok-kyu.
This year's event will be the largest ever in the PIFF's history, with 264 films from 63 countries being showcased. "There are more than 50 international films premiering for the first time at this year's PIFF. I think this reflects how much PIFF is appreciated by movie-makers worldwide".
The program showcases nine sections including "A Window on Asian Cinema", "Korean Panorama", "Wide Angle" and "New Currents". "A Window on Asian Cinema" reveals the status of Asian films from China, Japan, Thailand and India among others.
Two Japanese films are being eagerly anticipated -- Aoyama Shinji's "Murder in the Lake" and Iwai Shunji's new film "Hana and Alice". Taiwanese director Hou Xiao Xien's "Cafe Lumiere", which showed at this year's Venice Film Festival, is already drawing attention.
The "New Currents" section, the only competition at PIFF, features 12 films of rookie directors from six nations including Japan's Nami Iguchi and South Korea's Noh Dong-seok.
PIFF organizers believe the film gala helps Korean movie-makers present their works to the world viewers more efficiently. "Many film distributors, producers and film festival organizers are coming to Busan this time, and through PIFF, I hope the Korean film industry takes a step further into the international movie community", said one organizer.
The international audience will also get the chance to catch popular Korean films released this year, such as Park Chan-wook's award-winning "Old Boy" which grabbed the Jury Prize at Cannes, the recently released Asian collaboration "Three Extremes" and Kim Ki-duk's "3 Iron" that won the Best Director Award at Venice Film Festival.
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