Busan Film Festival Begins Despite COVID and Typhoon Season
The Busan Film Festival — Asia’s premier film festival — opens today despite concerns about the corona virus pandemic and the onset of typhoon season in East Asia.
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Over a period of six years, the festival overcame the political controversy that followed its 2014 screening of Diving Bell — aka The Truth Shall Not Sink With Sewol — a film about a ferry disaster that the government took issue with. The Busan festival has also struggled with the weather, as it takes place during the typhoon season in Korea. The grandiose opening ceremony is generally accompanied by ponchos and umbrellas while immaculately dressed celebrity guests nervously eyed the weather. Though South Korea has done a good job mitigating the virus pandemic, travel restrictions and closed borders mean that this year’s festival won’t have many international guests and a grand opening ceremony. There will be some in-person screenings, albeit with a limited number of socially-distanced guests. Nonetheless enthusiasm for the event remains unabated. Festival regulars sent in messages of support. “Even a pandemic cannot stop our passion for communicating through cinema,” said Chinese director Jia Zhangke, while Japanese director Kore-eda Hirokazu, who won the Asian filmmaker of the Year award at Busan in 2019, said: “I do not believe we will stay disconnected like this. We will be reconnected in any shape or form.” Well wishes also came from Carlo Chatrian, the artistic director of the Berlin festival; Alberto Barbera, director of the Venice festival; and Thierry Frémaux, the general delegate of the Cannes Film Festival. Despite the troubles, the festival has found ways to innovate. This year’s music documentary School Town King, will be screened at the Busan Cinema Centre and the Thai Film Archive’s theater in Bangkok simultaneously. Afterward director Wattanapume Laisuwanchaithere will discuss the film with audiences in the two countries in an online Q&A. There are also plans for similar twin-country screenings of films from Vietnam, Myanmar and the Philippines. The Busan festival opens this evening with the film anthology Septet: The Story of Hong Kong, which includes segments directed by Ann Hui, Sammo Hung, Ringo Lam, Patrick Tam, Johnnie To, Tsui Hark, and Yuen Woo-Ping. The last day of the festival will be on October 30th with Tamura Kotaro’s animated feature Josee, the Tiger and the Fish. Leave your thoughts on the 2020 Busan Film Festival below in the comments section. Readers seeking to support this type of content can visit our Patreon Page and become one of FilmBook’s patrons. Readers seeking more movie news can visit our Movie News Page, our Movie News Facebook Page, and our Movie News Twitter Page. Want up-to-the-minute notification? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Flipboard. This movie news was brought to our attention by Variety.
