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Bucheon Fest

by Ji-Young Chae

Bucheon will be the "cinema paradise" of Korea from July 13 until July 22.

The 10th Buchon Fanstastic Film Festival (PiFan) will be held from July 13 to July 22. The festival will be held at Bucheon City Hall, Citizen's Hall, Boksagol Cultural Center, and theaters.

Reportedly, as many as 251 movies, including 150 feature films and 101 short subjects, from 35 countries will be screened. This is the largest cinema festival ever. Also, there will be several different aspects in the festival. Han Sang-jun, the first programmer of the festival, says, "We have put horror, thrillers, and SF movies at the center and also have expanded the ratio of movies with interesting dramas. Also, there will be nine special screenings since Pifan is famous for its special screenings.

The opening film will be Jeon Gye-soo's "The Ghost Theater" This film is the first musical fantasy movie made in Korea. Han says that this film will be a good one for the opening because it is like the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" and the "Phantom of the Opera" blended together. Therefore it will be just the right since the Pifan focuses mainly on fantasy and festival-like atmosphere.

The closing film is Ho-Cheung Pang's "Isabella" The director is regarded to be a combination of Kar-wai Wong, the director of Chungking Express, and Lelouche Claude, who famous for his film, "A Man and A Woman". The movie presents attractive scenes for the audience. The movie received the "Best Movie Music Award" at the Berlin Films Festival.

Pifan will be separated into several sectors: "World Fantastic Cinema" focusing on horror-comedies, "Kid's Fanta" for children, "Family" section for families, and more. Therefore, people will be allowed to watch movies according to their taste.

It seems that the "Fritz Lang Concert" will draw attention from many people. There will be a band providing people with various pieces of music for silent films, which will be a special experience for the audience.

For fans of horror movies, Italian Horror Specials will be the right choice. Eight horror filmes made by Mario Barva and Lambarto Barva, known to be legendary directors of horror movies. People who are for old movies will prefer to go to the Audrey Hepburn section. During the festival, there will be an exhibition featuring on the works of a company called Weta's Workshop, which is famous for working for "Lord of Rings", "King Kong", and "Chronicles of Narnia"

Since 1997, Pifan, also known as a "young film festival", has brought about various changes in terms of movie going. All-night screening, which allows people to watch movies all through the night, and "Cine Rock Night", which gives an opportunity to the audience and music bands to join the music together, became popular by PiFan.

However, there were some unfortunate events too. PiFan went through some difficulties with the dismissal of Kim Hong-joon, the former chairman of the executive committee for PiFan. Many people who were in the film business were divided into two groups, which resulted in two film festivals in Bucheon and Seoul respectively held during the same time. After that, there were numerous efforts for a revolution and at last three groups, including the KAFAI, withdrew their boycotts. Back then, it was difficult to screen Korean movies during the festival. However, now, there will be 67 Korean movies screened during the 10th PiFan.

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