We present a list of 50 Films you cannot miss at the 21th Busan International Film Festival that is taking place from October 6th – 15th in Busan, South Korea.
#BKKY by Nontawat Numbenchapol – Thailand | 2016 – 75 min.
Section | A Window on Asian Cinema
Jojo, a 17-year-old girl from Bangkok, is about to graduate from high school. After her friend Q reveals a secret to her, the two girls grow close and spend all their time together. Jojo’s father wholeheartedly approves of the friendship and is just glad that Jojo is not going on any dates with boys. But there’s a storm cloud on the horizon. After entering university, Jojo meets Jeff and they begin dating—a decision that jeopardizes Jojo’s relationship with Q.
Based on candid interviews with hundreds of teenage boys and girls in Bangkok, #BKKY mixes fictional and documentary elements into a poignant coming-of-age film that explores identity, sexuality, and friendship. Unlike Nontawat Numbenchapol’s two previous documentaries Boundary (2013) and By The River (2013), both of which attempted to reveal realities not commonly discussed in Thailand, this film takes a lighter approach. But this doesn’t imply that being young is easy, and Numbenchapol deftly crafts a film full of all the mixed emotions and vividity of youths finding themselves in the world and in love. (PARK Sungho BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.11.2016 – Lotte Cinema Centum City 3 – 10:00 am
10.14.2016 – CGV Centum City 7 – 11:00 am
500M800M by Yao Tian – Hong Kong, China | 2016 – 83 min.
Section | A Window on Asian Cinema
It’s 1997. Hong Fen, her husband Wei Dong, his father, and their 8-year-old daughter live 800 meters above sea level in the mountains near the Three Gorges Dam in China, where construction is in full swing. Adhering to government policies on nature conservation, the family moves to a new development below the mountain. Hong Fern is happy her daughter can now attend school, but her father-in-law is depressed that he can no longer make clay dolls. In their new home, now fewer than 500 meters above sea level, the family is shocked to learn about a law that restricts the number of children one can have: Residents living 800 meters above sea level can have up to 2 children, those living 500-800 meters above sea level can have 2 children only if the oldest is a girl, and those living less than 500 meters below sea level are only allowed 1 child. Pregnant with her second child, Hong Fen escapes to her brother’s house. Public officials follow, and nearby farmers, donning sickles and other tools, make a stand against them.
500m 800m is a realistic critique of the barbaric family planning and stiff bureaucracy in China. After 35 years, the country’s one child policy finally ended on January 1, 2016. (KANG Naeyoung BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.11.2016 – Lotte Cinema Centum City 3 – 13:00 pm
10.13.2016 – Lotte Cinema Centum City 5 – 14:00 pm
A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery by Lav Diaz – Philippines | 2016 – 489 min.
Section | A Window on Asian Cinema
The film begins on the day before the execution of José Rizal, one of the national heroes of the Philippines. Starting from political propaganda movements to reform the Spanish colonial system, which had lasted more than three hundred years, nationwide independent revolution broke out. During the movement, many lives were sacrificed. Even worse, there were conflicts among activists. Eventually the first attempt ended in failure. Bonifacio, another national hero, was shot and left neglected so that his body hasn’t been found until today. However, in this tragic era, a musical genre of lyrical serenades called Jocelynang Baliwag was born.
Lav Diaz successfully reproduced this time of upheaval in an epic eight-hour film, which seemed impossible. Moreover, he adopted the cinematic conventions of the time as much as possible. His long journey of creation, based on written or oral stories, is segmented, but appeals for the validity of the questions in the past. This reminds us that the present is not cut off from a bygone culture. (PARK Sungho BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.12.2016 – Lotte Cinema Centum City 9 – 11:00 am
A Yellow Bird by K. Rajagopal – Singapore, France | 2016 – 112 min.
Section | A Window on Asian Cinema
Recently released from prison, Siva works part time at funerals while searching for his wife and daughter, who left him shortly after he was put away. In spite of his desperate efforts, no one, including his own mother, is willing to help him look for them. With difficulty, he finds his sister-in-law and learns that his wife has remarried. Despite this, he doesn’t give up, and leaves his mother’s house, filled with tenants with whom even communication is arduous. He befriends Chen Chen, a young single mother who works with him and engages in prostitution to make ends meet, and she suggests that he become her bodyguard when she meets her clients. A revealing film about one man’s pain and anger, a man whose fate forces him to live as an outsider.
Although the protagonist searches for his family, what he is truly looking for is not a woman to protect nor a child to support. It is his own identity. To become a member of society, he needs to overcome his own anger as well as that of others. However, the reality surrounding him is so harsh that it is difficult to tell good will from ill will. (PARK Sungho BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.14.2016 – Lotte Cinema Centum City 9 – 16:00 pm
Apprentice by Boo Junfeng – Singapore | 2016 – 96 min.
Section | A Window on Asian Cinema
Is it be possible to become friends with the person who took the life of a family member? Aiman, a young prison guard, is transferred to the country’s most secure prison where he meets Rahim, the prison’s chief executioner and the man who executed his father thirty years ago. Not revealing his secret, Aiman grows close to Rahim and even gets promoted to be his right-hand man. But word about this budding friendship reaches Aiman’s sister and she, unable to understand her brother’s behavior, tries to move out of the country, leaving it and her brother behind.
Singaporean director Junfeng’s debut, Sand Castle (2010), beautifully depicted a young man about to be recruited into the army, facing a truth that turns his life upside down. In this second feature film, his approach is more direct, revealing the dark side of individuals as well as those of institutions. With stand-out protagonists, the director visualizes the complex emotions surrounding the death penalty and those of the people who carry out the state’s will. (PARK Sungho BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.14.2016 – CGV Centum City 6 – 10:00 am
At Cafe 6 by Neal Wu – Taiwan, China | 2016 – 103 min.
Section | Open Cinema
The irony of love is that the more beautiful and passionate it is, the more tragic a separation becomes. High school companions Min-Liu and Xin-Rui are attracted to each other, but when they go to different universities in different places, naturally they have no choice but to cope with a long distance relationship. Rather than making their present predicament of being so far away from each other a time of regret, Xin-Rui makes detailed plans for them both, dreaming of getting together in the future. Min-Liu spends most of the time doing part-time work, also just hoping to be back together as soon as possible. Regardless of their love for each other, their idea of love and their individual approaches to it end up diverging. What choice can Min-Liu and Xin-Rui make before their inevitable separation, which may have already begun? t Café 6 is based on the online novel of the same title by Neal Wu, which was hugely popular in Chinese-speaking countries. It is also the author’s feature film debut. (PARK Jin-hee)
Schedule
10.11.2016 – CGV Centum City 4 – 12:30 pm
10.13.2016 – Busan Cinema Center Haneulyeon Theater – 16:00 pm
Baby Beside Me by Son Tae-gyum – South Korea | 2016 – 112 min.
Section | Vision – Korean Cinema Today
Doil is about to get out of the army. Waiting for him are Soonyoung, a woman he’s promised to marry, and his newborn son. On furlough, Doil finds out that he is not the biological father, and shortly after, Soonyoung disappears. Doil does everything he can to find her, but is unable to discover her whereabouts. Nothing seems to be working out according to his plan of settling down and getting a stable job. And he’s clueless as to what to do with the baby left to him. Perhaps life in the army, where all he has to do is follow orders, would actually suit him better. Can Doil overcome the struggles that lie ahead? Growing up isn’t something that only teenagers must do. (BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.12.2016 – CGV Centum City Starium – 13:00 pm
10.13.2016 – Megabo Haeundae 7 – 19:30 pm
10.13.2016 – Megabo Haeundae TM – 19:30 pm
Bangkok Nites by Tomita Katsuya – Japan, France, Thailand, Laos | 2016 – 183 min.
Section | A Window on Asian Cinema
A captivating film set against the open yet secretive world of red-light districts. Japanese Self Defence Force veteran Ozawa first came to southeast Asia many years ago, then eventually ended up frequently roaming around Bangkok’s red light districts. Luck, thanks to her beauty and cleverness, has become the most sought-after hostess at the bar where she works. Although she considers prostitution a part of her family history, she’s saving money in the hopes of opening a European style restaurant in her northeastern Thailand hometown. When Ozawa is commissioned to visit Laos, she accompanies him to introduce him to her family and childhood friends.
Tomita Katsura is an independent Japanese film director well known for his previous film Saudade(2011). The rough-around-the-edges feel of Bangkok Nites, his fourth, is primarily due to its low budget, but it is effectively used to reflect the jungle-like reality of his subject. Yet Asia, still reeling from World War II and colonialism, is depicted in a painful yet humane way. The Laotian grassland scene, in which one sees evidence of this painful history, aptly sums up this three-hour tour de force. (PARK Sungho BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.12.2016 – Lotte Cinema Centum City 5 – 19:30 pm
Trailer (Cineuropa)
Burning Birds by Sanjeewa Pushpakumara
France, Sri Lanka, Netherlands, Qatar | 2016 – 84 min.
Section | New Currents
Set in a small northern Sri Lankan village in 1989, Burning Birds is a film critical of society. Director Sanjieewa Pushpakumara considers this society in which social violence is inflicted upon a female breadwinner. After an illegal militant group kills her husband, ordinary housewife Kusum does anything to support her eight children and her mother-in-law. However, there is not only a huge amount of work to do for a poor and powerless working class widow, but she also has to endure the contempt and surliness of a male-oriented society. She finally loses the last vestiges of dignity when she is driven to prostitution and in the end, she makes a truly extreme choice.
Kusum’s situation is a bitter criticism of the realities of female labor in Sri Lankan society, where there is no institutional protection of women’s rights, but Pushpakumara uses careful camera walking and directing. He doesn’t adopt the documentary style often used for films with this kind, but he maximizes the absurdity of Kusum’s situation through mise-en-scène like a stage play. (KIM Ji-seok BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.11.2016 – CGV Centum City 6 – 16:00 pm
10.13.2016 – Megabox Haeundae M – 16:00 pm
Chronicles of Hari by Ananya Kasaravalli – India | 2015 – 105 min.
Section | A Window on Asian Cinema
Chronicles of Hari begins with two young documentary filmmakers interviewing Yakshagana artists. Yakshagana is a type of Indian folk theater in which all the characters are played by men. The documentary crew wants to research Harishandra, known to have killed himself despite his popularity in playing female roles. His story shows how a society with strong prejudices toward gender roles can destroy a talented person.
Harishandra played female roles on stage at night but lived as a man during the day, but soon the boundaries between night and day, the stage and reality became blurred. The resulting an identity crisis and social prejudices made looking into his own desires an impossibility. Because he played female roles, he was excluded from heterosexual relationships and marriage. When he tried to cross gender roles by wearing a skirt in everyday life, people who had admired him started to despise him. This mockumentary appropriately conveys his fragmented and fluid life as he spans the gender divide as well as art and daily life via an episodic structure based on various interviews. (CHO Hyeyoung BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.11.2016 – Lotte Cinema Centum City 7 – 20:00 pm
10.14.2016 – Lotte Cinema Centum City 10 – 16:00 pm
Coffee Mate by Yi Hyun-ha – South Korea | 2016 – 114 min.
Section | Panorama – Korean Cinema Today
Ordinary housewife Inyeong meets carpenter Huisu by chance in a café and for fun they decide to become coffee mates: friends who only meet in cafés and nowhere else. Although they don’t make calls or send texts, they can talk to each other about anything while sitting in a café. They share everything, from their daily routines to their deepest secrets, which have never been shared with anyone before. The coffee mates thing started out as a kind of joke but in the end, it shatters the two people’s entire lives, leaving them to face an awful truth they had never been aware of.
Movies tackling the subjects of amorous passion and infidelity most often focus on the sexual desires therein; an accidental encounter leads to sexual indulgence in each other, typically resulting in a ruined relationship, one way or another. Coffee Mate overturns this convention, as it is the mental rapport and not the physical union of the sexes that makes their regular married lives impossible to maintain. (BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.11.2016 – Megabox Haeundae 3 – 13:30 pm
10.11.2016 – Megabox Haeundae 4 – 13:30 pm
Diamond Island by Davy Chou – Cambodia | 2015 – 101 min.
Section | A Window on Asian Cinema
A little known story, but one worth telling is the story of the hopes and dreams of younger generations in a fast-developing world. Development has been repeated many times, but not enough to depict the stories of the faces and voices impacted by it. Once called the ’Pearl of Asia,’ Phnom Penh became one of Asia’s poorest cities after decades of genocide and war. However, the city today is under speedy development, driven by international capital building skyscrapers on deserted land. To look for new jobs and opportunities, many youths from rural areas come to this capital city, bringing a lively charm along with them.
Coming from the second generation of the Cambodian diaspora, young director Davy Chou was born and grew up in France. Although the cold, urban capital doesn’t effortlessly bring the future to this land of rich history, the director captures the carefree nature and chaos of his estranged motherland from a warm perspective. Heaven might be far away, but happiness has been always with us. (PARK Sungho BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.12.2016 – Lotte Cinema Centum City 5 – 13:30 pm
10.14.2016 – Lotte Cinema Centum City 6 – 14:00 pm
Fatal Intuition by Yun Jun-hyung – South Korea | 2015 – 109 min.
Section | Panorama – Korean Cinema Today
Brother Jangwoo and his younger sister Eunji have no parents. Eunji goes missing and after three days her body is found; Jangwoo dedicates himself to searching for the murderer, who left no witnesses, no clues and basically no evidence at all. During an exorcism performed to comfort his late sister’s soul, Jangwoo becomes suspicious of a man there when the brass bowl used for the ceremony rolls over and points at him; the man runs away but Jangwoo manages to track him down. Living alone in the town, Sieun has the power to foresee people’s deaths. As she foresaw Eunji’s death but ignored it, she is feeling guilty, so now she approaches Jangwoo and forecasts another death. He follows the same man to the place in her prediction and he thinks he might be the town pharmacist, who is known to be a nice person.
Fatal Intuition is a thriller blending in a good number of classic horror genre elements. Together with The Priests, this latest film from director Yun Junhyeong is another noteworthy example of the Korean thriller and horror genre. (BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Happiness by Sabu – Japan, Germany | 2016 – 90 min.
Section | A Window on Asian Cinema
Kanjaki, a middle-aged man, goes to a quiet countryside village. He puts his helmet on a shrunken old woman whom he meets by chance in a shop. As soon as he presses the buttons on the helmet one by one, she suddenly remembers forgotten happy moments and is rejuvenated. This is just the beginning. Kanjaki goes on to make the village people recall their happy pasts, but his face is lined with worry and a sadness that deepens. What is the secret of this helmet? And what is he trying to do with it?
Director Sabu’s Happiness suggests happiness and suffering are intertwined through the unusual scenario of a helmet reminding people of the happiest moments of their lives. Sabu convincingly portrays the notion that memory is the source of both happiness and suffering, and how memory affects our lives. (KIM Byeong-cheol BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.11.2016 – Busan Cinema Center Haneulyeon Theater – 13:30 pm
10.14.2016 – CGV Centum City 6 – 18:30 pm
Harmonium by Fukada Koji – Japan, France | 2016 – 118 min.
Section | A Window on Asian Cinema
Toshio runs a blacksmith’s workshop and lives with his wife Akie and little daughter Hotaru, but he is strangely indifferent to his family. His old friend Yashaka visits him after he is released from prison and Toshio lets him stay at his house without telling the family. Yashaka is friendly and polite, unlike Toshio, so he captures Akie and Hotaru’s hearts. As Yashaka gets ever more deeply involved in Toshio’s family life, their peaceful routine is shattered.
Director Fukada Koji’s Harmonium calmly explores the desires and guilt hidden beneath peaceful everyday lives and the hell that guilt can inflict. He displays excellent directing skills in conveying the heavy theme through unflinchingly depicting this sometimes lascivious story. Harmonium was shown in the Un Certain Regard section and won the Jury Prize at the 69th Cannes Film Festival. (KIM Byeong-cheol BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.12.2016 – CGV Centum City 3 – 12:30 pm
10.14.2016 – Lotte Cinema Centum City 4 – 15:30 pm
Headshot by Timo Tjahjanto and Kimo Stamboel – Indonesia | 2016 – 117 min.
Section | Midnight Passion
A mysterious young man jolts awake after months in a coma, nursed back to health by young student-doctor Ailin after being discovered left for dead with a gunshot wound to the head. It’s a rebirth of sorts and, realizing that the man has lost his memory and identity, Ailin renames him Ishmael. The two quickly grow closer, not realizing that behind their momentary peace lies danger. Soon their lives collide with a gang of dangerous criminals led by an enigmatic crime lord known simply as Lee. As Ishmael begins to suspect that his true identity is closely tied to these criminals, Ailin is violently kidnapped. Determined to save the woman who rescued him, Ishmael has no choice but to confront these criminals and his past. (BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Hema Hema: Sing Me a Song While I Wait by Khyentse Norbu – Bhutan | 2016 – 95 min.
Section | A Window on Asian Cinema
Deep in the dense forest of Bhutan, apart from secular society, a unique ceremony takes place every Year of the Monkey, which comes in every twelfth year in Buddhist monk and director Khyentse Norbu’s unconventional mystery drama. The people secretly chosen by the old monk wear masks throughout the entire fifteen-day ceremony to give complete anonymity. It is punished to unmask oneself or to try to figure out other’s identities, but everything else is free. This covert community is erotic but can be life threateningly dangerous. As the old monk says, “Being anonymous is intoxicating.” Humans may take drastic action without constraint. A young man with lots of curiosity as well as lots of fears joins the ceremony for the first time and becomes obsessed with a woman. Then his delusion leads him to do something that can never be reversed.
Hema Hema: Sing Me a Song While I Wait is a contemplation of human behavior and its karma in a flamboyant situation. Most characters never show their faces, but the flashed appearance of Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Zhou Xun, as well as the long final credit roll with names of crowd funders, gives enjoyment considering the solidarity among Asian filmmakers. (PARK Sungho BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.13.2016 – Megabox Haeundae 1 – 16:00 pm
10.13.2016 – Megabox Haeundae 2 – 16:00 pm
Her love boils bathwater by Nakano Ryota – Japan | 2016 – 125 min.
Section | A Window on Asian Cinema
By Nakano Ryota, Her Love Boils Bathwater is a family drama evoking both laughter and tears but at the same time delivering a strong feminist message. Miyazawa Rie gives an impassioned performance as Futaba, who embraces all love and pain. While searching for her runaway husband, she realizes she doesn’t have too much time left, and so decides what she wants to do before she dies. She then makes it happen: finding her husband so he can make a success of the family public bath business, and making her daughter Azumi stand on her own two feet. In the process, Futaba has to confess her own secret.
This is only possible due to Futaba’s infinitely positive thinking about life, her responsibility and affection for her family. Ryota turns the sadness of death sublime by making Futaba a strong and tolerant person, rather than simply a woman. The re-opened public bath will probably be warm thanks to her love, lending the title of the film has a delightful metaphoric charm. (KIM Ji-seok BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.14.2016 – Busan Cinema Center Cinema 1 – 13:30 pm
Her Mother by Sato Yoshinori – Japan | 2016 – 95 min.
Section | New Currents
Maybe it is possible for a victim to forgive a perpetrator. But would it be possible for both of them to understand each other? Sato Yoshinori’s Her Mother tells the story of a mother who state of mind becomes increasingly complicated as she attempts to understand the son-in-law who killed her daughter. Harumi is a common housewife. One day she faces tragedy when her daughter Michiyo is killed by her husband Koji in their own home. Six years ahead of the court verdict, she starts to visit Koji in prison in order to see if her daughter, as she always wondered, did something wrong. She wants to know the truth. Talking to Koji, she begins to believe that Koji is the only one who understands her pain. But her husband and brother do not understand her at all, which stirs conflict among them. Sato portrays how a family changes after a daughter is killed and talks about family issues that have never been revealed before. In doing so, he shows that the line between the good and the bad is not clear but blurred. (BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.12.2016 – Megabox Haeundae M – 17:00 pm
Honeygiver among the dogs by Dechen Roder – Bhutan | 2016 – 132 min.
Section | A Window on Asian Cinema
In a remote area in Bhutan, the chief monk at a Buddhist temple goes missing. The police suspect murder, and detective Kinley is assigned to investigate. The main suspect in the case is a woman named Choden, and Kinley tries to track her down. The villagers call her a “demoness” and spread all kinds of rumors about her. In search of clues, Kinley approaches Choden undercover. She tells him the tale of the female goddess “Dakini”, and he is mesmerized by this story.
Director Dechen Roder attempts to bring the tale of the goddess “Dakini” into the present world through a story about Choden. Countless “Dakinis” throughout history were women who broke out of the chains of marriage and social customs that restrained them to learn and improve themselves. But by ejecting the social norms of their day, they were portrayed as seductive and demonic femme fatales. That is also the image of Choden in this cinematic revelation. (HONG Soin BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.12.2016 – CGV Centum City 3 – 16:00 pm
Hotel Salvation by Shubhashish Bhutiani – India | 2016 – 102 min.
Section | A Window on Asian Cinema
Hotel Salvation in Varanasi, India, is where people go to spend their last days. After having a nightmare, 77-year-old Daya begins to believe that he will soon die. He leaves on a journey with his son Rajiv to greet death in Varanasi. Waiting for his life to end, Daya meets others who are preparing for death, and his life takes an unexpected course. Meanwhile, Rajiv starts to get impatient and often thinks about his family and the work he left behind in the city in order to accompany his father.
The title Hotel Salvation seems to point to the weightier topics of the afterlife and nirvana. However, in the film, the themes of death and salvation are not metaphysical; they are shown through the relationships that the characters experience within the simple reality of life. In other words, they are not vague concepts; they are things that exist in our daily lives and in the humane encounters we have as we go through it. They can even exist in a place where people prepare for death. Hotel Salvation is a film that shows the irony of life moving steadily toward its final conclusion. (HONG Soin BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.12.2016 – Megabox Haeundae 9 – 20:00 pm
Hyeon’s Quartet by Ahn Seonkyoung – South Korea | 2016 – 119 min.
Section | Vision – Korean Cinema Today
After watching the play The Quartet, Heon, Eun, Jun, and Kyeong decide to join an acting workshop. The one month-long class is led by Mirae, an actress. Heon, as the youngest employee of a theater company, is assigned only chores. Eun spends tedious hours tidying up in a secondhand bookstore. Jun spends most of his time acting in short films, and Kyeong is a photographer who aspires to be an actor. Mirae thoughtfully considers each of their motivations for acting, the deep emotions they might be hiding, and the self-image they are trying to project, believing that their acting is a mirror of their inner self. As part of a character-building session, Mirae shows them the diary of an anonymous person. She instructs each of them to read the diary, imagine the person writing it, and then do their best to act out that person. How different will each of their interpretations be?
Acting is not just about mere technique. It’s about exposing oneself, fighting against one’s own fears, and facing one’s true self. By examining these ideas, Hyeon’s Quartet delves deeper into the mystifying world of acting. (BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.12.2016 – CGV Centum City Starium – 16:30 pm
10.14.2016 – Megabox Haeundae 1 – 15:30 pm
10.14.2016 – Megabox Haeundae 2 – 15:30 pm
Knife in the clear water by Wang Xuebo – China | 2016 – 93 min.
Section | New Currents
Wang Xuebo’s debut feature film focuses on the mutual understanding between a man and a cow. In a mountain village in Ningxia, China, where the Hui people live, old man Majishan’s wife passes away, and his family decides to do a purification ceremony called Nazer, which, following the tradition of Hui people, should happen 40 days after the funeral. In order to do this, they have to kill a cow, but Majishan doesn’t want to because the cow is almost one of his family. For the dead mother, Majishan’s son continues to insist on killing the cow as she is old now anyway. The cow stops eating as if she understands the situation or has foreseen her death and Majishan is sad to see this. During a hailstorm, he takes the cow to his wife’s grave and Majishan’s eyes, filled with sympathy and sadness, deliver stronger emotions than any spoken line. He relieves his sorrow and agony by reading the Koran for the cow. (KIM Ji-seok BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.11.2016 – CGV Centum City 6 – 19:00 pm
10.13.2016 – Megabox Haeundae M – 13:00 pm
Lady of the Lake by Haobam Paban Kumar – India | 2016 – 71 min.
Section | New Currents
A small village by a lake. Citing pollution, the government incinerates the shanties that the destitute have long called home. People watch in despair as their homes burn. Among them is Tomba, who was able to somehow save his home but was powerless when the government demanded he move. Depressed as well as irate, he happens to get his hands on a gun. As he turns more and more violent and aggressive in his search for opportunities to use his gun, a lady visits his room every night.
This first feature debut is a low budget film made with the help of friends. Based on the true story of hundreds of shanties being burned by the police in 2011, it is a remarkable film that elegantly and magically captures the impoverished lives and crisis facing a community. The director of Floating Life, a documentary made in the same village in 2014, returns to the very same place to create a completely different story. (BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.12.2016 – CGV Centum City 6 – 10:00 am
10.14.2016 – Megabox Haeundae M – 16:00 pm
Lost Daughter by Chen Yu-jie – Taiwan | 2016 – 85 min.
Section | A Window on Asian Cinema
Lost Daughter shows how a family relationship based on competition and possession can cause tragedy: it tells a desperate growth story accompanied by sacrifice and wound. In this film, the family members born from the same father are in competition, which prevents them from sharing anything at the same time. After a death and farewell, the father attempts to reconcile with his daughter, who does the same with her sister, but it is too late. Maybe a family is based on the sense of possession and doesn’t allow its members to reach each other until it is dismantled. The father tries to stop the family from collapsing without knowing the cause of it despite his position as father. The family here is obliged, or perhaps destined, to be dismantled. Dismantlement of a family, after all, is the course of realizing that its members must stop longing for the attention and affection of the father. Lost Daughter in this sense is a story of Shin, who is no longer a daughter to her father. (CHAI Heesuk BIFF Catalogue 2016)
Schedule
10.14.2016 – Lotte Cinema Centum City 8 – 13:00 pm
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Categories: Film Festival
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