City Busan Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Naman Ramachandran Bruce Dern will star alongside Nepali cinema stalwarts Dayahang Rai and Hari Bansha Acharya in Binod Paudel’s “The World’s Happiest Man.” The story delves into the plight of Bhutanese-Nepali refugees who settled in the Ohio-Pennsylvania area and fought alienation and displacement. Paudel’s “Bulbul” was chosen as Nepal’s entry in the Oscars’ international category in 2019. He won best director at Nepal‘s National Film Awards, where he had previously won the screenplay award for “Saanghuro” (2013).

Gyeongseong Creature starring Han So-hee and Park Seo-joon, will air this year.Today (January 8), Netflix announced that season two of Gyeongseong Creature will premiere sometime in 2024. It comes just days after the streaming service release part two of the first season on January 5.According to a press release, the second season of Gyeongseong Creature will be set in modern-day Seoul, 78 years after the events first season.

Nick Clement Following years of delays and pandemic restrictions, and now celebrating a post-strike awards season, what better way to kick off the 35th annual Palm Springs Intl. Film Festival than with a “fun and naughty film,” says festival director Lili Rodriguez. Thea Sharrock’s “Wicked Little Letters” will enjoy its U.S.

The Bequeathed, starring Hellbound actress Kim Hyun-joo. Here’s everything we know about the show.The Bequeathed, based on a popular webtoon by Kang Tae-kyung, is co-written by Hellbound and Train to Busan creator Yeon Sang-ho, alongside Hwang Eun-young and series director Min Hong-nam.The series focuses on Yoon Seo-ha (Kim Hyun-joo), who inherits a family graveyard after the death of her uncle.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor U.K. based sales and distribution outfit Blue Finch Films has boarded worldwide rights to thriller “Steppenwolf” from writer-director Adilkhan Yerzhanov, whose credits include the Cannes selected titles “The Owners” and “The Gentle Indifference of the World.” The film will have its world premiere at next month’s International Film Festival Rotterdam as part of the Big Screen Competition. “Steppenwolf” is a brutal story of an unlikely duo who will stop at nothing to find what they are looking for.

Naman Ramachandran A range of subjects, ranging from hot button to mystical, await Academy voters considering the contenders from South Asia in the international feature category. The most visible film from the region is certainly Bhutan’s “The Monk and the Gun,” Pawo Choyning Dorji‘s follow-up to the Oscar-nominated “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom.” In the film, Dorji uses the first elections in one of the world’s youngest democracies to comment on what is lost as his country modernizes. The Variety critics pick, following its festival premieres at Telluride, Toronto, Rome and Busan, sold to a raft of major territories worldwide, including Roadside Attractions in the U.S.

Naman Ramachandran The Singapore Film Commission (SFC) celebrated its 25th anniversary during the 34th Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) with a lavish party attended by the great and the good of the industry. Though the local box office for Singaporean films has yet to regain its pre-pandemic heights, they are doing well internationally with 2023 alone seeing selections at all the top festivals, including Sundance, Berlin, Cannes, Locarno, Busan and San Sebastian.

EXCLUSIVE: Most of the serious candidates for Best Picture and other major awards are known quantities, but if you are looking for a dark horse comp for Everything Everywhere All At Once, get ready for Poor Things. A Golden Lion winner at Venice and buzz title at Telluride, New York and Busan, Poor Things has been a relative secret, because the strike prevented its cast from promoting it.

Valerie Wu Intern The Palm Springs International Film Festival has announced its 2024 lineup. Held by the Palm Springs International Film Society, the PSIFF aims to spotlight and celebrate a range of global films. The 35th annual festival’s opening night will host the U.S.

EXCLUSIVE: Korean production powerhouse Barunson E&A is making its first move into the burgeoning Indonesian film industry through an investment in Visinema’s upcoming action movie 13 Bombs. 

Naman Ramachandran Chinese superstar Fan Bingbing delivered an electrifying masterclass to a sold-out ballroom full of screaming fans at Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands on Friday. The in-conversation event was part of the 34th Singapore International Film Festival where Fan is the recipient of this year’s Cinema Icon Award. The festival is screening three of Fan’s films, curated by her – the recent “Green Night,” “Buddha Mountain” and “Double Xposure” – and the star walked the red carpet on opening night, Nov.

K-pop girl group (G)I-DLE will be releasing their second studio album in January 2024, their label has confirmed.Today (December 1), South Korean news outlet News1 reported that (G)I-DLE would be making a comeback with their second studio album in January 2024. The report was later confirmed by their agency CUBE Entertainment in a statement to XsportsNews.The upcoming record will arrive about eight months after their sixth mini-album ‘I Feel’, which was released in May and features the hit song ‘Queencard’.

Naman Ramachandran Yosep Anggi Noen, whose “24 Hours with Gaspar” premiered at Busan and is playing at the Red Sea and Singapore festivals, has lined up his next movie, an untitled horror film. The film is produced by Palari Films, the Jakarta-based production company behind Edwin’s “Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash,” which won the Golden Leopard at Locarno in 2021. Noen is no stranger to Locarno glory himself, having been nominated in 2012 for “Peculiar Vacation and Other Illnesses” and in 2016 for “Solo, Solitude” and scored a special mention in 2019 for “The Science of Fictions.” The untitled horror-drama-thriller film, produced by Palari’s Muhammad Zaidy and Meiske Taurisia, will unite acclaimed actors Happy Salma and Putri Marino for the first time.

Naman Ramachandran Netflix has acquired Indonesian filmmaker Yosep Anggi Noen’s festival favorite film “24 Hours with Gaspar.” Adapted from a detective novel of the same title that was published in 2017 by Sabda Armandio, “24 Hours with Gaspar” follows the life of private detective Gaspar, who has only 24 hours to live. He discovers clues leading to the mysterious disappearance of Kirana, a childhood friend, and later to Wan Ali, who’s involved in a human trafficking syndicate.

Naman Ramachandran Zarrar Kahn‘s “In Flames,” Pakistan‘s submission to the Oscars‘ international feature category, has won the International Newcomer Award for the best film in competition at the 72nd International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg, Germany. The award carries a cash prize of €30,000 ($32,850). “In Flames,” a Pakistani Canadian horror-drama about a Karachi woman and her mother who are beset by malevolent figures from their past after the family patriarch dies, premiered at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and has had considerable festival play since, including at Toronto, Busan, Sitges, Sao Paulo and Pingyao.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The QCinema Project Market, the industry initiative that accompanies The Philippines’ QCinema International Film Festival, revealed its winners list on Tuesday delivering almost $500,000 of grants and in-kind support. The prizes followed a two-day networking and pitching event on Nov. 18 and 19 for 19 feature-length fiction film projects from Southeast Asia.

Martin Dale Contributor Victor Erice’s “Close Your Eyes” won best film at the 17th edition of Leffest Lisboa Film Festival, which announced awards Saturday night. Marking Erice’s first feature film since his 1992 docudrama “The Quince Tree Sun” and garnering almost universal positive reviews – Variety called it “an aching ode to film, time and memory” – following its world premiere at Cannes, “Close Your Eyes” has screened at Toronto, Busan, BFI London and New York.

Overwatch 2 and Dead Island 2 are getting streetwear drops from luxury streetwear brand ARK/8 following a drop earlier this year of Elden Ring-related streetwear earlier this year.ARK/8 announced the news today (November 16), and confirmed that both collections will have different inspirations. The Overwatch collection will be “shining a spotlight on two countries – South Korea and Japan” and will be specifically focused on “two fan-favorite characters, D.

The Devil’s Plan.Netflix announced that it would bring The Devil’s Plan back for a second season in a new press release. the reality show originally premiered in September this year with a star-studded cast of contestants, including SEVENTEEN‘s Seungkwan, actress Lee Si-won, Esports player Guillaume Patry and more.In its press release, Netflix noted that The Devil’s Plan had “shot to the top of Netflix’s Top 10 TV series in South Korea” following its release.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “The Boy and the Heron” supposedly the final feature film by Japanese animation maestro Miyazaki Hayao, placed on top of the south Korean box office for a second weekend. It held off challenges from a clutch of new releases, including “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” and “Talk to Me.” “The Boy and the Heron” collected $2.49 million between Friday and Sunday, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic).

Bangladeshi director Mostofa Sarwar Farooki is attending Mumbai Film Festival with feature-length drama Something Like An Autobiography, which is playing in the festival’s Icons: South Asia section after premiering in the Jiseok section at Busan. 

Rapture, the second film from Indian filmmaker Dominic Sangma, is being presented with  the Cultural Diversity Award at this year’s Asia Pacific Screen Awards. 

Paradise, directed by Sri Lankan filmmaker Prasanna Vithanage, is playing in the Icons: South Asia section of Mumbai Film Festival, fresh from its world premiere at Busan International Film Festival where it won the Jiseok Award.

Naman Ramachandran Bangkok-based film fund Purin Pictures will disburse $140,000 to three Philippines and one Indonesian film as part of its fall grants. The Purin committee has chosen three fiction and one documentary projects for production support and one documentary project for post-production support. “The Remotes” is John Torres’ first fiction film after two decades of making documentaries.

Naman Ramachandran India’s Matchbox Shots is developing a project on slain Punjabi rapper Sidhu Moose Wala. Indian rapper, singer and songwriter Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu, known as Sidhu Moose Wala, was a star of Punjabi-language music and cinema whose work charted on Billboard globally. His work was not without controversy – it delved into raw, unfiltered issues, making him a voice for many.

EXCLUSIVE: United Talent Agency has signed Zarrar Kahn, director of Pakistan’s Oscar entry In Flames, for representation in all areas. 

Naman Ramachandran Lila Aviles‘ “Totem” has won the global feature award at the annual Jakarta Film Week. The film previously won awards at the Berlin, Hong Kong, Durban and Beijing film festivals. The direction award for best Indonesian feature film went to Jeremias Nyangoen’s directorial debut “Women of Rote Island.” The film bowed at Busan earlier in October.

Naman Ramachandran Bangladeshi auteur Mostofa Sarwar Farooki has wrapped his latest film “Last Defenders of Monogamy.” The cast is headlined by popular Bangladeshi actor Chanchal Chowdhury (“Karagar,” “Hawa”) and Xefer Rahman and the cast also includes Samina Hussain Prema and Shuddho Rai. The film follows Shafqat (Chowdhury), a father of two adolescents and a loving husband, who is a firm believer in the ideals of monogamy but the winds of change take a big test of his ideologies. “Working with Farooki is always special.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Vietnam-based sales agent Skyline Media has closed multi-territory deals for two of its current titles “The Soul Reaper” and “Vietnamese Horror Story.” The deals follow Skyline’s recent trip to Busan’s ACFM and come ahead of its participation as exhibitor at a string of further final quarter sales events – Tokyo’s TIFFCOM, Santa Monica’s American Film Market and Taipei’s Taiwan Creative Content Fest. Folk horror film “The Soul Reaper,” currently in the final stages of post-production, was licensed to GaragePlay for Taiwan and to Westec Media Limited (WML) for Laos, Cambodia and nine other Southeast Asian territories. The film, adapted from Thao Trang’s best-selling horror novel “Lunar New Year in Hell Village” (aka “Tet O Lang Dia Nguc”), is set to be released in Vietnam cinemas on 08 December. GaragePlay is one of Taiwan’s leading distributors, and recently handles releases of “Suzume,” “John Wick: Chapter 4” and “Someday or One Day.” WML is the biggest content distributor in Cambodia and has distributed more than 1,000 titles theatrically since its establishment.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Bhutan’s official Oscar entry “The Monk And The Gun,” Pawo Choyning Dorji‘s follow-up to “Lunana: A Yak in The Classroom,” has been bought by a raft of well-established international theatrical distributors. Following its festival premieres at Telluride, Toronto, Rome and Busan, “The Monk and the Gun” has been sold by Films Boutique to Pyramide Distribution (France), September Films (Benelux), Rialto Distribution (Australia), Future Films (Scandinavia), A Contracorriente (Spain), Lev Films (Israel), Aurora Films (Poland), Trigon (Switzerland), Alambique Films (Portugal) and Impact Films (India and Indian Subcontinent). Earlier this week, the crowdpleaser was also acquired by Roadside Attraction for the U.S.

Naman Ramachandran India’s Film Bazaar, South Asia’s largest film market, has selected a range of projects from around the world for its annual co-production market. The 20 selected projects are from 11 countries, most are already structured as co-productions, and they are all South Asian-themed.

Persona: Sulli, a documentary film starring late K-pop star Sulli, will premiere on Netflix in November.Today (October 26), Netflix confirmed that Persona: Sulli will be released on the streaming platform next month. According to a report from Korea JoongAng Daily, the film will be split into two parts.The first is a short film called 4: Clean Island, which stars the late Sulli as the titular “4”, who travels to an island that is dubbed the cleanest place in the world.

Hulu announced today that Moving, which became the most-watched Korean original on the streamer and Disney+ globally earlier this summer, will be available in English in December.

Guangzhou-based director Choy Ji has filmed Hong Kong from a perspective we’ve rarely seen before in his debut feature Borrowed Time, which played at Pingyao film festival this week after screening in Busan’s New Currents competition. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Acclaimed film-making duo Kamila Andini and Ifa Isfansyah take a calculatedly side-on approach to Indonesian societal history in “Cigarette Girl,” a new Netflix series that releases on Nov.1 and which premiered its first episodes at the Busan International Film Festival earlier this month. Starting with a wealthy family about to lose its aging patriarch in 2001, the series uses flashbacks to the 1960s to uncover not only the origins of the family’s herbal cigarette or ‘Kretek’ fortune, but also the hidden romance underlying it. And it highlights the overbearing and only slowly changing societal pressures placed on women, from high and low ranks, even as Indonesian politics and government underwent tectonic shifts. Ahead of the Busan premiere Andini and Isfansyah told Variety how their lush and romantic treatment is both a product of changing society and a way of facing up to recent Indonesian history.Watch the new trailer here.

Chinese director Ning Hao has flown directly from Busan film festival in South Korea to China’s Pingyao International Film Festival (PYIFF) with his latest film, The Movie Emperor, starring Andy Lau.