Two Korean and two Indian movies make the cut in the Busan International Film Festival’s New Currents main competition section. They are joined by one each from Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and Germany.
The section has a track record of making significant discoveries among new Asian films and directors.
The selected titles are eligible for multiple awards, including the New Currents Award, the FIPRESCI Award, the NETPAC Award, and the KB New Currents Audience Award.
The selection comprises: “Ajooma,” directed by Hu Shuming (Singapore-Korea); “Blue Again” from Thailand’s Thapanee Loosuwan; “Hail to Hell,” by Korea’s Lim Oh-jeong; “Memento Mori: Earth,” by Vietnam’s Marcus Vu Manh Cuong; “No End,” directed by Nader Saeivar and flying the flags of Germany, Iran and Turkey; “A Place Called Silence,” by Malaysia’s Sam Quah; “Shivamma,” fromIndia’s Jaishankar Aryar; Japanese director Kubota Nao’s “One Thousand and One Nights”; “A Wild Roomer,” from Korea’s Lee Jeong-hong; and The Winter Within,” directed by Aamir Bashir, and structured as a co-production between India, France and Qatar.
The festival previously announced the participants in the new Jiseok section, an expansion of the previous Kim Jiseok Award selection, which will now also be competitive. It is scheduled to unveil its full lineup on Tuesday next week.
The festival will run as an in-person event Oct. 5-14, 2022, at the Busan Cinema Center and other locations around the city. In 2020, the first year of the COVID pandemic, the festival operated as a scaled down event. Last year, it managed to bounce partially back, but border controls meant that few foreign guests were able to participate. (Variety)