Busan closes its busiest festival in a decade amid record crowds and a political row
Busan has closed its busiest film festival in more than a decade, with full cinemas and a political row unfolding off screen.
The 31st Busan International Film Festival ran Oct. 6-15 and drew 200,043 admissions to screenings, its highest film audience since 2015, according to Variety. Total attendance across talks, outdoor events and side programmes reached 277,027. That is around 40,000 more than the 30th edition last year.
The scale was large on paper too. The festival presented 246 official selections, six titles more than the previous edition and its largest line-up since 2019, according to BIFF. Its Competition section featured 14 films from Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, Iran, Uzbekistan and Indonesia.
The crowds spread well beyond the main cinemas. Community BIFF in Nampo-dong, the festival's neighbourhood arm in Busan's old cinema district, drew 29,511 visitors, more than 1.7 times last year's figure. BIFF Everywhere, which takes screenings out across the country, played in a record 18 locations. Venues included Buddhist temples, traditional markets and a National Assembly building in Seoul.
The numbers held in the market as well. The Asian Contents & Film Market, the buying and selling arm where producers close distribution deals, ran Oct. 10-13 at BEXCO under the theme "Core and Expansion". It counted 30,484 visitors, up 1.6%, and 3,158 participants from 1,266 companies in 58 countries, up 4.3%. Exhibitors rose 17% to 339 companies, including 49 first-timers, with Czech and Slovak and Cambodian pavilions appearing for the first time.
The politics centred on one local hit. Hur Jin-ho's "The Assassin(s)" depicts 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.
On Oct. 1, BIFF called off "Actors House: Lee Min-ho", a career conversation with one of the film's stars. Hive Media Corp. then withdrew the cast and crew of "The Assassin(s)" from all festival appearances, including the opening ceremony and an outdoor stage greeting, citing audience and attendee safety.
There was also a strong Iranian presence. Majid Majidi, the filmmaker behind "Midday Meal", said he nearly skipped this year's Busan festival before deciding to attend to speak out about Iran, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He used the trip to denounce the U.S.
What makes this stand out is the split screen. Ticket queues grew. Side venues grew. The business floor grew. At the same time, organisers had to pull a headline event over safety fears around a chart-topping film.
