Busan Film Festival Unveils Carte Blanche Lineup with Fan Bingbing, Kim Jeewoon and Hong Kyung-pyo
The 31st Busan International Film Festival has unveiled its Carte Blanche lineup, tapping actor Fan Bingbing, director Kim Jeewoon and cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo to each select and present a film that shaped their artistic sensibilities.
Carte Blanche — a French term meaning complete freedom of choice — invites prominent figures from film and culture to pick titles that influenced them, then discuss the work with audiences after each screening. The programme is a festival staple: a curated window into the tastes of the people who make cinema Variety.
Fan Bingbing chose Park Chan-wook's The Handmaiden (2016), the layered period thriller that won the BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language. Kim Jeewoon went back to the origins of one of cinema's great action franchises, picking George Miller's original Mad Max (1979). Hong Kyung-pyo selected Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colours: Blue (1993), the first instalment of the Polish director's acclaimed colour trilogy Variety.
The three guests bring deep and varied résumés. Kim Jeewoon made his directorial debut with The Quiet Family in 1998 and built a body of work spanning horror (A Tale of Two Sisters), noir action (A Bittersweet Life), the period spy thriller The Age of Shadows, Arnold Schwarzenegger's The Last Stand and the 2022 period drama Cobweb. Hong Kyung-pyo's cinematography credits read like a highlight reel of modern Korean cinema: Snowpiercer, The Wailing and Parasite, Bong Joon Ho's Oscar winner Variety. Fan Bingbing, one of the most recognisable figures in Chinese cinema, starred opposite Lee Joo Young in Green Night, a film following two women navigating poverty and sexual violence BIFF.
Beyond the Carte Blanche selections, the festival's industry arm is expanding. The Busan Story Market — a rights-trading platform operated by the Asian Contents & Film Market (ACFM) where producers pitch projects to buyers for adaptation — added nine titles across two new tracks. Four Hong Kong intellectual-property selections, chosen by the Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency (CCIDA), brought the market's official selections to 29. That Hong Kong slate comprises three animated shorts and one comic: Blacky the Metal Arm Cat, Cirkillation, Tai Lung Fung – Full Throttle Kitchen and Disposable Dolly Variety.
A newly launched Remake IP section — covering rights to remake completed films rather than develop them from scratch — debuts with five Thai titles, drawing on Thailand's status as this year's ACFM Country of Honor. The selections span genres: horror mystery Midnight Incense, coming-of-age comedy Happy Monday(s), family thriller Home for Rent, horror-romance My Boo and wedding comedy Congrats My Ex!, a 2023 film directed by Prueksa Amaruji for Fearfolks Variety.
A pitching session for the five Thai Remake IP titles is scheduled for 10 October, with business meetings running through 13 October Variety.
The 31st Busan International Film Festival runs 6–15 October at the Busan Cinema Center and venues throughout Busan. The 21st Asian Contents & Film Market, the industry marketplace running alongside the festival, is held 10–13 October Variety.
