Large Indonesia Presence at Busan as Government Expresses Support for Film Industry

CAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment) and Janet Yang Productions announced the second year of the Julia S. Gouw Short Film Challenge for Asian American and Pacific Islander Women and Non-Binary Filmmakers. The Challenge’s sophomore year kicks off with a Nov. 1st premiere, sponsored by AMC Theatres, where the four short films by year one’s winning filmmakers will be unveiled: 

Netflix announced an upcoming thriller Korean series, The Bequeathed, to be written by Train To Busan and Hellbound director Yeon Sang-ho.South Korean news outlet Yonhap News Agency reported yesterday (October 18) that Netflix had decided to produce the brand-new series written and directed by Yeon Sang-ho. The streaming platform also announced the casting of actors Kim Hyun-joo (Trolley, Love All Play) and Park Hee-soon (A Model Family, My Name) in lead roles for The Bequeathed.

BTS have unveiled the official performance of ‘Proof’ B-side ‘Run BTS’ from their recent Busan concert.On October 15, the boyband held their ‘Yet To Come’ concert in Busan as part of the city’s World Expo 2030 bid, marking their first show in six months. At the concert, BTS also debuted the performance of ‘Run BTS’ from their June 2022 compilation album ‘Proof’.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The free concert by K-pop sensation BTS in Busan, Korea, was viewed by upwards of 49 million people on Saturday. The free-of-charge “BTS ‘Yet to Come’ in Busan” concert was held in support of Busan’s bid to host the 2030 World Expo and represented an attempt to introduce the city and Korean culture to global audience. After a change of venue, the physical component was held at the city’s Asiad Main Stadium and attracted some 50,000 in-person guests. An additional 10,000 people in the city watched a live retransmission at the Busan Port, and a further 2,000 gathered in Haeundae, the tourist area that recently played host to the Busan International Film Festival.

Naman Ramachandran Indonesia’s KawanKawan Media has partnered with Singapore’s Momo Film Co on Nelson Yeo’s “Dreaming & Dying” and Duong Dieu Linh’s “Don’t Cry Butterfly,” it was revealed at this week’s Asian Contents & Film Market, held on the sidelines of the Busan International Film Festival. “Dreaming & Dying,” about three middle aged individuals who are forced to confront their inner demons as a long-buried love triangle between them resurfaces, is currently in production. Yeo said: “ ‘Dreaming & Dying’ is the accumulation of my obsession with dreams and memories. Primarily, it is about how we choose to remember things in our own ways, and as time passes, that fantasy becomes the reality.”

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korean film “A Wild Roomer” and India’s “Shivamma” have been announced as the joint winners of the New Currents competition, the prestige discovery section of the Busan International Film Festival. “We were particularly sensitive to the lightness and subtlety of the director’s view of his characters. Through his innovative cinematography, he creates original circulations between the characters within a house, and builds a very contemporary universe,” the competition jury said of the Lee Jeon-hong-directed “A Wild Roomer.” “We appreciated the originality and intensity with which the director was able to tell this very contemporary story. Here documentary and fiction meet in an organic and spirited way of making cinema. The generosity of the actors and the scenes create a closeness with this universal story that takes place in an Indian village,” the jury said of the Jaishankar Aryar-directed “Shivamma.”

Rebecca Souw Achieving a balance between artistic creativity and commercial appeal has been a key component of the success of the Korean film and TV industries, said senior executives at the Asin Contents & Film Market, held this week as part of the Busan International Film Festival. Leading U.S. producer Ted Hope said that “Being audience focused but ambitiously creating authored work,” is significant and that Korean filmmakers are able to tap into a wide range of emotions. Yang Yoomin, a Korean producer who has worked with hit filmmaker Yeon Sang-ho, explained why such a discussion was important. She gave the examples of the Hong Kong and Japanese film industries which have both at times enjoyed international success, but which have recently been eclipsed. Hope said that Hong Kong films and Japanese animation are at opposite ends of the spectrum stretching from commerce and art films, but said that Korean stories demonstrate a balance between authorship and audience-focused approaches.

Big Hit Music has issued a new statement addressing the “unauthorised use” of BTS‘ trademark ahead of the band’s forthcoming ‘Yet To Come’ concert in Busan, where the label says it will crack down on “counterfeit” merchandise.The statement, written in both Korean and English, was shared on Big Hit Music’s official social media channels yesterday (October 11). The label revealed that it has been taking “strict measures against companies that have been repeatedly producing, selling and distributing products that infringe on BTS’ portrait and trademark rights (‘rights violating products’)”.The label also announced plans to “conduct on-site inspection[s] and investigation[s] of counterfeit products” at and around the venue of BTS’ forthcoming ‘Yet To Come’ concert in Busan, slated to take place this weekend on October 15 at the Busan Asiad Main Stadium.

Naman Ramachandran “Declaration” (“Ariyippu”) a festival hit film by acclaimed filmmaker Mahesh Narayanan and popular actor-producer Kunchacko Boban, has been snapped up by Netflix. The film bowed at Locarno and is playing at the BFI London Film Festival. This week it plays in the Busan International Film Festival’s A Window on Asian Cinema strand. The Malayalam-language film follows Hareesh (Boban) and Reshmi (Divya Prabha), an immigrant couple from Kerala working in a medical gloves factory near Delhi, and who aspire to go abroad for a better life. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, when an old video resurfaces among the factory workers, it opens up a Pandora’s box that threatens the couple’s jobs and marriage.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Future Laobans,” a project directed by Maung Sun and produced by Maung Sun and Ma Aeint, claimed the Busan Prize, the top award at the Asian Project Market, on Tuesday. The awards were made at an event held at the Paradise Hotel in Busan’s Haeundae district at the end of three days of quick-fire meetings between producers and directors and an array of potential co-producers, financiers and distributors. Organizers said that they put together 705 such one-on-one meetings. The CJ ENM Award went to Indonesia’ “Gaspar,” to be directed by Yosep Anggi Noen and produced by Yulia Evina Bhara and Cristian Imanueli.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Rithy Panh, director of “Rice People” and “S21 The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine” is an icon of art-house cinema, at once political, unique, and charming. The iconic image may be another of his confections – a palatable work built on uncomfortable facts. On the incomplete evidence of a 50-minute on-stage dialog at the Busan International Film Festival on Sunday, Panh comes across as simultaneously contrarian and principled. A curmudgeonly veteran and yet a filmmaker still curious to learn. “If there were no Khmer Rouge maybe I would not be a filmmaker,” he said of the Communist insurgents, who won the Cambodian civil war in 1975 and whose brutality and atrocities he has spent a lifetime documenting and exposing.

Naman Ramachandran Director Natesh Hegde and producer Rishab Shetty, whose “Pedro” was in the New Currents competition at the Busan International Film Festival in 2021, are at this year’s Asian Project Market with “Vaghachipani” (“Tiger′s Pond”). “Pedro” won best director for Hegde at Pingyao, best film at the Nantes Three Continents Festival, and had a stellar festival run including the BFI London Film Festival, Golden Horse and IndieLisboa. Set in a sleepy hamlet, “Tiger′s Pond” will follow an under-aged shepherdess who is discovered to be pregnant. Her employer, who is hellbent on becoming the chair of the village council, makes every effort to cover it up.

Rebecca Souw TITLE: Behind The Scenes For Singapore-Korea Co-Production “Ajoomma” And Its Journey Ahead Post-Busan The past few weeks have gone by in a blur for Singapore-Korean co-produced comedy film “Ajoomma.” In a short span, it had a world premiere at the 27th Busan International Film Festival, earned four Golden Horse nominations including best actress, best new director, best original screenplay and best supporting actor. And Singapore has selected the film as itOscars contender. But it took seven years to get his far. At a Busan workshop on Saturday, first-time director He Shuming, co-founder of Giraffe Pictures and the film’s executive producer Anthony Chen and co-producer Lee Joon-han discussed the how the film came to life. “Ajoomma: The Curious Case Study of a Singaporean-Korean Co-production” was presented by mylab at the Asian Contents & Film Market.

Korean series Extraordinary Attorney Woo and Squid Game were the big winners at Busan International Film Festival’s Asia Contents Awards (ACAs), which featured a star-studded red carpet and welcomed back international guests for the first time since the event’s inaugural edition in 2019. Extraordinary Attorney Woo took the Best Content Award, the top prize of the ceremony, as well as Best Actress for Park Eun Bin, who heads the show in the role of a young female lawyer with autism. The series was broadcast in Korea on the ENA cable channel where it set the record for the highest ratings in the channel’s history. Netflix also started streaming the show in select territories from June, after which it topped the streamer’s non-English language weekly rankings for two months straight. Netflix’s Squid Game won the Technical Achievement Award and Best Supporting Actor for Park Haesoo, who plays the childhood friend of Lee Jung-jae’s main character in the Emmy award-winning series. Best Actor was presented to Suzuki Ryohei, star of Japanese series Mobile Emergency Room, which was broadcast on Japanese channel TBS and Disney+, while Best Supporting Actress went to Sora Ma of Singaporean series This Land Is Mine. Best Newcomer went to actress Bao Shang En for Chinese show Love Behind The Melody and actor Yokohama Ryusei for Japan’s The Journalist. China’s Wang Xiaoshuai (So Long, My Son) and Yang Yishu were awarded Best Writer for Wang’s first foray into drama series, The Pavilion, produced by Chinese streamer iQiyi. Chinese actress Fan Bingbing was awarded the ACA Excellence Award.

Rebecca Souw Still riding high on the success of “The Roundup,” Korean indie film producer and seller K-Movie Entertainment, is showcasing a slate of 16 movies at the Asian and Contents Film Market, part of the Busan International Film Festival.

Naman Ramachandran Filmmakers in the Philippines will no longer have to pay back production grants received from Film Philippines, the organization also known as Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), it was revealed at Busan’s Asian Contents & Film Market on Saturday. “The Film Philippines incentives and grants are the same, and the benefits that you can get and the percentages of cash rebate that you can get, they’re still the same. The only difference is it’s now non-recoupable funds, meaning that the beneficiary does not need to return any of the funds that they receive,” David Fabros, unit manager, special projects and external affairs at the FDCP told Variety. “It used to be otherwise. It used to be that FDCP required an equity share to be returned. But now that has been revised and removed. So now all the grants of Film Philippines incentives are non-recoupable.”

Naman Ramachandran Singapore’s Momo Film Co has boarded a raft of projects, it was revealed on the opening day of the Busan Asian Contents & Film Market on Saturday. Momo, in which Blue Ant Media’s Beach House Pictures has a majority stake, was founded in 2018 by writer-director Kris Ong (“Sunday”) and Tan Si En, who is a co-producer on Busan and Locarno title “Arnold is a Model Student.” Tan has boarded “Andragogy” by Wregas Bhanuteja (Cannes winner “Prenjak,” Busan 2021 title “Photocopier”) as a co-producer. The film will follow Prani, a middle-aged schoolteacher, whose angry video goes viral and she gets trolled online. Adi Ekatama is producing for Indonesia’s Rekata Studio (“Photocopier”).

Rebecca Souw Korean independent film sales agency, Indiestory is presenting four titles at Busan’s ACFM starting on Saturday. All were produced in 2022, and two of them “The Ripple” and “Dream Palace” are screening at the Busan International Film Festival.  “Dream Palace” depicts the lives of 2 people who move into a new apartment building, only to receive news that their new homes will be back on sale. Inspired by 2010 real estate crises, the film deals with the ordeals of losing a home yet extending compassion to one another. Featuring Kim Sunyoung (“Broker,” “Three Sisters”) and Lee Yoonji (“Good Morning” and hit TV series, “Extraordinary Attorney Woo”), “Dream Palace” is premiering at the Busan festival’s Panorama section.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korean sales agent Finecut has added “Secret: Untold Melody” and “The Dinner” to its burgeoning Asian Contents & Film Market slate. Both titles are sourced from a deal with Hive Media Corp. (“Inside Men,” “The Man Standing Next”). An adaptation of 2007 Taiwan hit “Secret,” “Secret: Untold Melody” is a romance film about pianist and a student. While the original film starred Jay Chou and Gwei Lun-mei, the Korean retread stars Doh Kyung-soo (a.k.a D.O. from celebrated K-pop group EXO) who has acting credits including “Swing Kids” and the “Along With The Gods” franchise, and rising star Won Jin-a (“Netflix’s “Hellbound”). Now in post-production, the film is directed by Seo You-min (“Recalled”).

Lee Jung-jae will get a chance to see the “Squid Game” star in his earliest starring role, as a manipulative male model in 1994’s “The Young Man.” Korean indie distributor and sales agent Mirovision has added the 1994 picture to its sales lineup at the Asian Contents & Film Market, on the sidelines of the Busan International Film Festival. Set in Seoul’s Rodeo Drive district, the film sees Lee play a model trying to break into commercials. After he accidentally kills an agent and dumps the body in a river, he has to turn up the charm to get away with the slaying. The role earned him best new actor awards from four organizations.