Busan To Open With Park Chan-wook’s Netflix Title ‘Uprising’, Close With Eric Khoo’s ‘Spirit World’; Kiyoshi Kurosawa Named Asian Filmmaker Of The Year

Korea’s Busan International Film Festival has unveiled the full program of its 29th edition, which will open with the world premiere of Uprising, produced and co-written by Park Chan-wook, and close with Spirit World, starring Catherine Deneuve and directed by Singapore’s Eric Khoo. 

Directed by Kim Sang-Man, Uprising marks Park’s first collaboration with Netflix. Gang Dong-won and Park Jeong-min star in the period epic, which Park co-scripted with Shin Chul, about two childhood friends who are turned into bitter adversaries. 

Spirit World stars Deneuve as a legendary singer who flies to Japan for a final sold-out concert after which she embarks on an unexpected life in the spirit world with one of her biggest fans as her guide. Masaaki Sakai also stars in the film, a France-Singapore-Japan co-production that is being sold internationally by Goodfellas. 

Busan also announced that Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa has been named Asian Filmmaker Of The Year. Two of his films will be screened at the festival – Serpent’s Path, a French-language remake of his 1998 Japanese film of the same name, and Cloud, which is Japan’s submission for the Best International Feature category of next year’s Oscars. 

In total the festival will screen 279 films during its ten-day run (October 2-11), including 86 world premieres and 13 international premieres. Organizers said the number of screenings is increasing by around 8% compared to last year, despite a 50% cut in government subsidy. KOFIC Theater has been secured as an additional venue, joining the core Busan Cinema Center venue and multiplexes across the city. 

Special Programs in Focus include Miguel Gomes, who won best director at Cannes this year for Grand Tour, and previously announced special programs ‘Teen Spirit, Teen Movie’, screening Asian coming-of-age films including Tiger Stripes, City Of Wind, My Sunshine and Happyend; and ‘In Memory of Lee Sun-kyun’, remembering the Parasite actor who died by suicide at the end of last year. 

The previously announced News Currents and Jiseok competition sections include works by Brillante Mendoza, Rima Das and Tom Lin.

Busan has also launched a Documentary Audience Award, to support Asian documentary filmmaking, which will be presented to the film that received the highest rating from festival audiences in the Wide Angle – Documentary Competition section, along with a $7,500 (KRW10m) prize.

Busan’s industry platform, Asian Contents and Film Market (ACFM), has added a Producer Hub, which has set Korea as the Focus Country for its inaugural edition, and will also host AI and streaming-related seminars. 

In addition, Busan’s Asia Contents Awards & Global OTT Awards, which recognise TV and streaming content, will be held on October 6 with PTS Taiwan’s Imperfect Us, Wong Kar Wai’s Blossoms Shanghai and Netflix’s Cigarette Girl and A Killer Paradox leading the nominations.