29th Busan International Film Festival: Ocean of Cinema

For several years now the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) has been on the top of my list of film festivals to go to. Over the last 29 editions, gathering new films and new filmmakers from across Asia, it rose to the status of the most important film event in the region. While BIFF is by default the main platform for promotion of the latest Korean arthouse and mainstream films, this year BIFF screened 278 films with over half being world premieres of Asian productions. Between 2nd and 11th October, I finally had an opportunity to go to Busan and see if my expectations matched reality. 

Originally, I was planning to move from BIFF to the Pingyao International Film Festival, but this year a commotion on the film festival circuit in the region caught me by surprise. In a last-minute announcement, Jia Zhangke moved the dates of the Pingyao International Film Festival to the last week of September, placing it one week before, instead of just after, Busan. Jia justified the shift with the need for warmer weather to be able to make use of the outdoor cinema more often as the festival expands as there is not enough space to meet audience demand. The cold mid-October evenings in Central China discourages even the most ardent cinephiles who, in September, are safe to watch films outdoors without the risk of frostbite. Moving Pingyao to mid-September resulted in many festival guests such as the Cannes’s selector Christian Jeune or filmmaker Miguel Gomes travelling first to Pingyao from where they continue their festival tour to Busan in early October and Tokyo later in the month. This meant that Gomes’ Cannes competition film Grand Tour had its Asian premiere in China, leaving only the status of the Korean premiere for BIFF. During the festival, the organisers announced that they are considering moving BIFF to mid-September just after the Korean mid-autumn harvest festival Chuseok. I feel this territorial dispute between Pingyao and Busan might continue for a while in the future if not interrupted by the overall problems regarding the survival and organisation of international film festivals in the region. 

BIFF is affected by the power struggle not only on the festival circuit but also within the festival’s management team. Last year’s edition took place in the aftermath of multiple scandals which resulted in the departure of the managing and artistic directors.¹ Only the last-minute appointment of an interim festival head – Nam Dong-chul – pushed the 28th edition forward. This year, the conservative government slashed the state subsidies for the film production and exhibition sectors. BIFF was forced to operate under 50% of the budget the organisers had at their disposal just last year which made the box office income vital for the survival of the festival. The ticket sales started earlier than usual. Almost all of the screenings were sold out, which left little space for press and festival guests to see the films in cinema. The booking system was opening each day at 8:30am to allow passholders to book tickets for the following day. However, the system proved very confusing because it did not show how many tickets were left and which screenings were sold out. Specific press screenings were only scheduled for three days and covered three sections from the program: New Currents, Jiseok and Korean Cinema Today – Vision. 

Platform

The video library seemed like a possible way out of this deadlock but there were not enough computers available which left industry guests and accredited press stuck waiting in line. I could not help but recall what Jia Zhangke – one of the reasons for BIFF’s headaches this year – wrote about the state of the festival video library in 1999. A new talent on the film festival circuit at the time, Jia was invited to BIFF to serve on a jury. He started to work on Zhantai (Platform, 2000) and wanted to connect in Busan with his Japanese producers to show them the bits and pieces of his work-in-progress footage. None of the VCRs in the library were working, which left a bad impression on Jia who criticised organisers for spending the budget on lavish ceremonies and parties instead of providing the video library with working equipment. He wrote: “At the closing ceremony, winners were honoured with spectacular fireworks over the stage. Watching this dramatic moment above me, I thought and estimated the number of VCRs they could buy with the money spent on the fireworks. But these dazzling fireworks could become news headlines, and it is very unlikely that a television crew would do a broadcast from the dim video library. There is no contest between fireworks and VCRs. This made me want to distance myself from this festival.”² Although BIFF has invested in facilities and hardware since 1999 – the video library is now located in the Busan Cinema Center, which was built in 2011 – it has not been particularly accommodating to film festival guests this year.

Having previously visited Busan in 1999, as an invited member of the jury and when he was working on Platform, Jia’s latest film, Fengliu yidai (Caught by the Tides), premiered this year at the fest. It feels like the end of a cycle because the film features a lot of archival footage taken by Jia while working on Platform. Following its premiere In Competition in Cannes, Caught by the Tides awaits its domestic premiere, something Jia has most probably given up on after submitting the film to Cannes without a screening permit from the Chinese board of censors. 

Caught by the Tides

Interested in using new technologies in filmmaking, Jia assembled the footage, which spans the last twenty years, all shot on digital cameras or generated with AI software. Watching the film made me wonder if Jia might have decided to use AI to edit the footage, too. There is a visual key ordering the scenes, repeated colour schemes and movements, edited in a way that resembles labelling and cataloguing rather than storytelling. Maybe AI is a way out of reading films pervasively through the lens of auteur cinema? Maybe it is a positive intervention of an objective mechanical eye? The only character that recentres the narrative and pushes the story forward is the main actress, Zhou Tao, who has collaborated professionally with Jia since Platform, and the pair have since married. Over the years, Zhou Tao’s acting became a feature of Jia Zhangke’s auteurism. What would Jia do without Zhou on screen? Would that still be a Jia Zhangke film? One of the most touching scenes in Caught by the Tides comes at the end of the film when Zhou’s character, working in a supermarket, is observed by a former long-lost lover. While changing clothes in the dressing room, she tries to gather the strength to face him. Zhou’s character remains silent for most of the film except for the final scene where she leaves her former lover behind, joins a jogging crowd and lets out the spontaneous yell of a fighter, a shout that feels as if it has been suppressed for far too long. Caught by the Tides feeds on nostalgia and will be loved by those who give in to the feeling, though it seems as though Jia and Zhou are ready to let go of the past and move on.

The Height of the Coconut Trees

Other films that I saw at BIFF were dictated by the availability of tickets, so my impression is relatively patchwork and cannot result in any general statement about the program. Du Jie, who over the years worked as a cinematographer on the set of Ning Hao’s films such as Fengkuang de shitou (Crazy Stone) series, entered the New Currents competition with his directorial debut Yashi no taka-sa (The Height of the Coconut Trees). Du moved to Japan four years ago as part of an exodus of Chinese filmmakers and intellectuals abroad during the pandemic. The film is based on a real-life event in which a young Japanese person has been stopped from committing suicide. In The Height of the Coconut Trees, Du shows Japan through the eyes of a Chinese person. The dialogue is also filtered through the mind of a Chinese speaker still not fluent in Japanese. Even though this could be considered inadequate and awkward, the discord becomes the strength of The Height of the Coconut Trees, which delves into dreamscapes where languages intertwine. 

The film took me back to the style of transnational cinema from the early 2000s, before the filmmakers’ workshops and the film funds offered at international film festivals standardised the process of transnational cooperation. Mwo geuleon geoji (So It Goes), a Korean film in the Jiseok competition dedicated to Asian filmmakers who have directed at least three features, was another form of time travel. Contrasting with the 2000s transnational cinema, it took me back to 1990s American indie road movies. The film centres on a young couple driving through South Korea, killing Korean men in revenge for violence against women or an attempted robbery. So It Goes does draws attention to a major problem in Korean society. In 2024, South Korea was shaken by a wave of post-break up femicides but the domestic violence and crimes against women have been a long-standing problem, not yet adequately addressed by the Korean policymakers and law enforcement. 

So It Goes

In So It Goes, the couple execute folk justice in a Gregg Araki style (The Doom Generation, 1995), the boy and the girl seeming slightly extraterrestrial, disconnected from all social structures. Before starting his career as a filmmaker, Lee Haram worked as a cook for 20 years. So It Goes is filled with a punk-DIY spirit that is sometimes lacking in contemporary art cinema which prioritises professionalisation. The fear of being mistaken for an amateur is especially strong at the beginning of a career, which can therefore affect the younger generation of filmmakers. In his full-length directorial debut, Shui dong you (As the River Goes By) the 1997-born Charles Hu walks on the safe side of cinema. The film centres on a young adult in his late 20s who works for the railways – a job he inherited after his father left their family when he was still a boy. As the River Goes By delves into childhood memories and past traumas as much as it reflects a tangping attitude among Chinese Gen Zs because the main character refuses to pursue promotion at work, to the disapproval of his overbearing mother.³ There is a mystery around the disappearance of the father which is ultimately unresolved. Narratively, the mystery feels like a trick to convince the audiences that they are watching a crime film – an extremely popular genre currently in China – instead of an arthouse coming-of-age story. 

The title As the River Goes By feels like an echo of Hebian de cuowu (Only the River Flows, Wei Shujun, 2023) – an arthouse film that became a box office hit in China. The visual style and story in As the River Goes By is very similar to the one presented in Jiaoqu de niao (Suburban Birds, Qiu Sheng, 2018). The reason for my impression of a cookie cut formula might be because the two films have the same producer – Patrick Mao Huang, an experienced Taiwanese producer who has developed multiple film projects in East and Southeast Asia since the 2010s, and who presented several new projects at Busan’s Asian Contents and Film Market this year. 

To Kill a Mongolian Horse

Another Chinese debut, Yi pi baima de remeng (To Kill a Mongolian Horse, Jiang Xiaoxuan), also drew attention thanks to its producer – Malaysian filmmaker Tan Chui Mui – who has supported the careers of young filmmakers in China over the last decade. Jiang Xiaoxuan, in her debut full-length feature which premiered in Venice Days, takes a close-up look at the father-son relationship, saying goodbyes to a certain lifestyle and traditions that have been passed on through generations. In To Kill a Mongolian Horse Jiang reveals social injustices and class inequality. The low-key drama features powerful scenes of pride and rebellion such as the moment in which the main character, a Mongolian middle-aged horse rider, enters a banquet hall on a horse and takes a bottle of alcohol from the table at which his ex-wife is forced by her Han Chinese boss to entertain guests. 

Vietnam Night – Busan International Film Festival

After watching the film, each time I attended another party at BIFF held by representatives of national film industries in hotels by the Haeundae Beach, I imagined how this scene would play out in real life. The parties provide another insight into the global film industry: the interaction between national cinemas and international film festivals. On the day of the screening of Trong lòng đất (Viet and Nam, Truong Minh Quy) in Busan, the representatives from the Vietnam Film Development Association organised ‘Vietnam Night’. The Cannes-premiered film is already banned in Vietnam because it was deemed by the authorities to present a negative view of the country and its people. Nevertheless, it did not stop the Vietnam Film Development Association, an entity operating under the state management of the Ministry of Home Affairs, from capitalising on the festival buzz around Viet and Nam, but obviously without mentioning the film itself during the banquet. BIFF, as with any major international film festival, is made up of events to support national film industries that at times requires exceptions and the bending of rules. 

Busan International Film Festival

It takes me back to the problems of the Korean film industry, the fourth largest film market before the pandemic, now struggling with low cinema attendance which does not seem to be on the way to recovery to its 2019 vitality. However, I will always remember the time I went to the screening of Modeun jeom (Every Single Dot), an essay film by debut filmmaker Lee So-jeong, in which she reflects upon the nature of vision and its connection with capitalism and exploitation. In the middle of the projection in a half-filled screening room, I looked across the aisle and saw a middle-aged Korean man watching the film intently. Even though BIFF has its management issues, throughout the years the organisers have achieved something great: they have built an audience and spread an interest in cinema which, in the end, is really what determines if a film festival is successful or not. 

Busan International Film Festival
2 – 11 October 2024
https://www.biff.kr/eng/

Endnotes