The Busan International Film Festival drew its largest film audience in more than a decade at its 31st edition, which ran Oct. 6–15, while a political firestorm over a Korean box office hit and an Iranian director’s war speech kept politics in the spotlight.
These are Variety’s takeaways from the festival and its Asian Contents & Film Market (ACFM).
Audiences Turn Out, Market Holds Steady
Screenings drew 200,043 admissions, the festival’s highest tally since 2015. Counting talks, outdoor events and side programs, total attendance reached 277,027, around 40,000 more than the milestone 30th edition last year. Organizers pointed to a new opening date and a bigger screening slate.
Community BIFF, the audience-programmed strand in Nampo-dong, pulled in 29,511 visitors, more than 1.7 times last year’s figure. BIFF Everywhere took films to a record 18 locations, among them Buddhist temples, traditional markets and a National Assembly building in Seoul.
The ACFM, which ran Oct. 10–13 at BEXCO under the theme “Core and Expansion,” counted 30,484 visitors, up 1.6%. Registrations climbed 4.3% to 3,158 participants from 1,266 companies in 58 countries. Exhibitors rose 17% to 339 companies, 49 of them first-timers, and Czech & Slovak and Cambodian pavilions made their debuts.
“The biggest obstacle is funding,” ACFM director Ellen Y.D. Kim told Variety. “The scale and the role of the market have grown quickly, but public support has not kept pace. National funding for ACFM has stayed at the same level for two years running.”
“For anyone who wants to work with Asia, there is no place as efficient over four days,” she said.
Korbinian Haeutle, project manager for Europe! Hub, which ran a stand with EFP and Unifrance, said the quality of the market was very good. “The meetings are good and it feels like many new distribution companies are coming up. Everyone is quite happy,” he said.
Malaysian filmmakers Woo Ming Jin, director with Greenlight Pictures, and Lau Kok Rui, director and screenwriter with Thousand Sales Pictures, said BIFF brings everybody from Asia together, “so for us it’s a very important festival.”
“You can count on everyone being here, exchanging about policy changes, sharing project updates… It’s good to see what people are doing. It’s motivational,” they said.
Politics Takes the Stage
The festival’s opening week was shadowed by “The Assassin(s),” Hur Jin-ho’s thriller about the Aug. 15, 1974 shooting of first lady Yuk Young-soo, wife of then-President Park Chung-hee. The film opened Sept. 23 and topped the Korean admissions chart, but conservative politicians and online critics accused it of distorting history.
On Oct. 1, BIFF called off “Actors House: Lee Min-ho,” a career conversation with one of the film’s stars. A day later, production company Hive Media Corp. withdrew the cast and crew from all of their festival appearances, including the opening ceremony and an outdoor stage greeting, citing the safety of audiences and attendees. The move came after a conservative group announced daily protests outside the home of lead actor Yoo Hae-jin.
The row reached the competition jury’s press conference the day after the opening ceremony, where a reporter raised the question of historical fact and creative freedom. “Specifically regarding the film you mentioned, I have not seen it, though I have noticed there are some controversies. It depends on each individual’s feelings,” jury president Zhang Yimou said. “Creation and historical truth: what does historical truth really mean? History is also written by people, so is history itself truly real? Sometimes that in itself is a question mark.”
“But as creators, we respect every creator’s vision,” he added.
Fellow juror July Jung, the director of “Next Sohee” and “Dora,” said: “What I feel now, even though it isn’t my film, is that my heart feels so cold as a filmmaker.”
Later in the festival, around 20 filmmakers, among them directors Chung Ji-young and Lee Myung-se, held a press conference in Busan urging politicians to stop using the film as a political weapon and to leave its judgment to audiences. They also criticized the main opposition People Power Party, whose 109 lawmakers had written to the Singapore International Film Festival asking it to withdraw the film. Singapore has kept “The Assassin(s)” as its Oct. 21 opening title.
Politics returned at the closing ceremony. Majidi’s “Midday Meal,” the story of a rural schoolteacher, won the Busan Award for best film from Zhang’s jury. After Zhang handed him the trophy, Majidi spoke against the war in Iran, focusing on a U.S. military strike in February on a school in Minab that killed 156 civilians, 120 of them schoolchildren. He dedicated the award to the people of Iran.
“They will stand firm to the end and fight to get their independence back,” Majidi said.
“I wish for a future with no war,” he added.
A-List Status, Star Wattage
This was Busan’s first edition since FIAPF recognized it as an A-list festival, and the second year of its competition, which featured 13 Asian titles. The win means “Midday Meal” can go straight to the Oscars’ international feature race without a national selection.
Eddie Cahyono’s Indonesian drama “Ibuku” took the special jury prize, and Lee Yun Chan won best director for Taiwan’s “To Be Ordinary.” Best actor was shared by Zhou Xun for Gu You’s “The First Taste of Loneliness” and Himeno Kashun for “Satoko Always.” Li Danfeng, sound director on “The First Taste of Loneliness,” received the artistic contribution award. Zhang’s jury also included Bi Gan, July Jung, Moon Choi, Samal Yeslyamova, Ishikawa Kei and Tran Thi Bich Ngoc.
The guest list matched the new status. Michelle Yeoh, back on the Busan red carpet after a 15-year absence, was named Asian Filmmaker of the Year at an opening ceremony hosted by Kim Minha, where Ann Hui received the Camellia Award. Former festival chair Kim Dong-ho was honored with the Korean Cinema Award. Fan Bingbing and Charlotte Gainsbourg also walked the opening night carpet, along with Alfonso Cuarón, making his first official trip to Korea.
Isabelle Huppert brought “All About Corinne,” Maggie Gyllenhaal visited Korea for the first time and Koreeda Hirokazu presented “Look Back.” Lee Chang-dong arrived with his Netflix drama “Possible Love” and its cast, Jeon Do-yeon, Sul Kyung-gu, Zo In-sung and Cho Yeo-jeong. Na Hong-Jin, Kim Jeewoon, Im Kwon-taek, Lee Myung-se, Bae Chang-ho, Fukada Koji, Lav Diaz, Rintaro, Reza Rahadian and Christine Hakim were also in town, as were Zhou Xun, Hyun Bin, Jung Woo-sung, Son Suk-ku, Hwang Jung-min, Kim Hye-ja and Japan’s Michieda Shunsuke.
Fan, Kim Jeewoon and cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo curated Carte Blanche selections, while Actors’ House sessions featured Kim Go-eun, Kim Minha, Ryu Seung-ryong, Shin Min-a and Ju Ji-hoon. Gainsbourg, Gyllenhaal, Cuarón, Na, Diaz and Rintaro led master classes and talks.
Producers Close Ranks, Money Gets Creative
At Producer Hub, the Producers Guild of Korea (PGK) and Indonesian producers’ association APROFI formed the Asian Producers Alliance, with producer bodies from the Philippines, Taiwan and Hong Kong also signing on. The founders see it as the seed of a standing coalition of Asian producers working together on co-productions and policy. PGK also signed cooperation agreements with Italy’s CNA and the Sakha Filmmakers’ Union.
“Co-production used to be an option; now it is an essential strategy for sharing risk,” market chief Kim said.
New capital was on the table as well. Korean content investor Solaire Partners and Japanese entertainment financier Questry signed a memorandum of understanding on Oct. 12 to set up a Korea–Japan content fund worth KRW100 billion ($74.6 million). The market’s new Investor Summit gathered 20 companies, including Korean investor-distributors, venture capital firms and investors from Indonesia, Singapore, the U.S. and France, for a closed-door roundtable. Cinema by Brand, launched with Innocean and PGK and sponsored by Hanwha, paired three film projects with brand backing.
Financing individual films remains hard. Hollywood executives at a panel featuring UTA, Gold House, Lionsgate and HYBE saw an opening for Asian talent and stories rooted in specific cultures, while conceding that getting projects funded is still a struggle.
Kevin Law, market consultant at Film Export U.K. and a sales agent, said Busan is a steady market for keeping relationships and building partnerships. “I think one thing that’s obvious this year is that it’s difficult for independent films,” he said.
Li-yan Fan, international sales representative at France’s Ecce Films, made her first trip to Busan looking for co-production partners. “Co-production is becoming inevitable, but it still depends on the nature of each project and the resources available where you’re shooting,” Fan told Variety.
AI Gets Down to Work
Netflix has already put AI to work in some form on around 300 of its titles, Lee Sung Q, the streamer’s senior director of APAC production, said at Creative Asia, the Netflix and BIFF program for emerging talent. On the same panel, co-hosted by Netflix and the MPA, “The Outlaws” director Kang Yoon-sung put AI’s potential savings on a feature at 30% to 40% of the budget.
Kang co-directed “Run to the West,” billed as Korea’s first feature to use AI throughout production, and made a test for “The Gulf of Aden,” a film built around military operations at sea, entirely with AI using Kling. He said the savings on that film would not come only from swapping out CG. “The shoot itself got simpler, and it cut the overall production period to some extent,” he said.
He also said the technology often cuts out the debate and shared experience that filmmaking has relied on. “So the quality of the footage AI makes is very high, but when it comes to delivering emotion and moving audiences, I think we’re in a period where it has actually gotten worse,” Kang said.
Lee said that when it comes to conveying emotion, a human ultimately has to touch the work once more. “I strongly agree that a human touch is absolutely essential,” he said.
On the market floor, InnoAsia, the ACFM’s technology strand, brought in Kling, Alibaba and BytePlus. Kling teamed with filmmakers including Korean director Kim Sung-su to show how AI might reshape filmmaking, and Forum BIFF screened an AI short by Jia Zhangke. VFX veteran Hong Jae-cheol told the strand’s AI Creators Camp how images generated by AI are being slotted into production pipelines next to conventional effects, with people still steering the creative work.
“Compared to FilMart, microdramas aren’t as big as you would expect. Same for AI. In Hong Kong they were everywhere,” Haeutle said.
Law said AI remains very much a debate. “At the moment you’ll find that AI is in films but not in the way people are imagining it to be,” he said.
Europe and Thailand Build Bridges
By Europe! Hub’s count, 36% of the festival program was at least a European co-production. “There’s the 140 years France-Korean relationship and this year, the Italian Pavilion is very big,” Haeutle said.
Thailand was the ACFM’s first Country of Honor, and the Busan Story Market added five Thai titles for remake. “Compared with last year, we’ve seen many more visitors coming to our booth, asking questions and showing curiosity about what Thailand has to offer,” Phakhin Chettanat, business development manager at Thailand-based Banana Sound Studio, told Variety.
He said Asian countries are becoming more competitive, though production costs still decide where shoots go. “As talent and technical capabilities continue to improve across the region, I believe Asia will eventually become a major production hub alongside North America and Europe,” he said.
Japan was Producer Hub’s focus country this year, with Japan’s Visual Industry Promotion Organization (VIPO) co-hosting a program that drew 188 producers from 25 countries.