We present the winners of the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN) which took place from July 4 – 14, 2024, in Bucheon, Korea.

Bucheon Choice: Features

Best of Bucheon

The Last Stop in Yuma County by Francis Galluppi – USA | 2023 – 90 minutes

Having found out the refill truck won’t arrive for hours at a remote gas station in Arizona, the occupants, consisting of a traveling knife seller, a waitress, the sheriff, a rancher, an elderly couple, a young vagabond couple, and a group of bank robbers, all settle in at a diner next door with broken air conditioning. Tension builds in the heatwave as a hostage situation takes place and explodes with unpredictable outcomes. The Last Stop in Yuma County is a feature directorial debut by Francis Galluppi, who creates an absurd yet truly suspenseful tale that captivates the audience from the beginning to the end. The director brilliantly adds a touch of black comedy, too, with his subtle characterization aided by an excellent ensemble cast. Never slow or dull, this film is a creative triumph and one of the best indie thrillers in years, cementing Mr. Galluppi as a director to be reckoned with. (Jongsuk Thomas NAM)

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Best Director Choice

Strange Darling by JT Mollner – USA | 2023 – 96 minutes

A young woman is seen running for her life, bloody and terrified. What follows shows the reasons why, and plenty of surprises are about to be revealed in the process. Strange Darling is JT Mollner’s sophomore directorial effort, after Outlaws and Angels (2016), which played at BIFAN in 2016. The film tells a day in the twisted love life of a serial killer, unfolding meticulously in the non-linear narrative in six chapters. Also, an award-winning actor Giovanni Ribisi as the director of photography, shooting in stunning 35mm format, and the powerful performances by leading characters, result in one of the true original horror-thrillers in recent times. There is a reason this film must be seen without knowing much, and you will be well-compensated for doing so. (Jongsuk Thomas NAM)

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Jury’s Choice

Suffocating Love by Liao Ming Yi – Taiwan | 2024 – 102 minutes

Having Liao Ming Yi’s debut feature, I WeirDo in the year of 2020 could be seen as both a stroke of luck and a misfortune for the film. A romance between two individuals with OCD, armed with masks, would undoubtedly be more intriguing than any other film at the height of pandemic. However, the pandemic itself might have become the black hole that consumed this movie; after all, everything was blamed on the virus. The man, struggling with his lover’s obsession with cleanliness and control, dreams his way into a new relationship overnight but can’t fully enjoy this new romance. With OCD, 100% iPhone shooting, and Austin Lin-Nikki Hsieh duo, Liao Ming Yi’s second film, Suffocating Love, naturally recalls its predecessor. But now that the shadow of the pandemic has lifted, it seems that OCD no longer belongs to weirdos only but has become an inescapable condition of life for all of us who desire relationships and contact while fearing wounds and isolation. Romance, then, appears to be a grand fantasy we long for but ultimately cannot attain. (Jin PARK)

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Audience Award

The Last Stop in Yuma County by Francis Galluppi – USA | 2023 – 90 minutes

Bucheon Choice: Shorts

Best Short Film

I’m Not a Robot by Victoria Warmerdam – Netherlands, Belgium | 2023 – 22 minutes

When using websites, you often have to prove “I’m Not a Robot” by ticking a checkbox. I’ve never succeeded on the first try, which made me doubt if it’s a true test of being human. The protagonist of this story also fails to pass the robot test and even receives a response suggesting there’s a possibility she might be a robot. This short poses fundamental questions about the nature of humanity. (Kristin JI)

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Jury’s Choice for Short Film

Help, I’m Alien Pregnant by THUNDERLIPS – New Zealand | 2023 – 15 minutes

There is a saying that no one knows your body better than yourself. The protagonist, who believes she is pregnant with an alien’s child, visits a gynecologist, but no one takes her seriously. In an attempt to prove her claims, she decides to reveal her boyfriend’s significant (?) parts. This short film, presented as a farce, is rough around the edges but perfectly captures the essence of B-movie sensibilities. (Kristin JI)

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Audience Award for Short Film

Meat Puppet by Eros V – UK | 2023 – 12 minutes

On the verge of high school graduation, the protagonist, obsessed with action figures, completely forgets his promise to his girlfriend. He ends up having his soul stolen by a misdelivered hand puppet. This short humorously explores the culture of so-called ‘kidults’ and portrays the protagonist’s comedic sacrifices as he matures into a true adult. Following his previous work, Good Boy (2022), director Eros V seems to be carving out his unique genre. (Kristin JI)

Bucheon Choice: AI Film

Best AI Film

Where Do Grandmas Go When They Get Lost? by Léo Cannone – France | 2024 – 2 minutes

This AI film is a visual tale that explores through the eyes of a child the whimsical and poignant question of where our grandmothers go when they ‘get lost’ from our lives. It began traditionally with writing the scenario and creating a narrative structure. Images were generated using MidJourney and refined in Photoshop. The animation was crafted in Runway and enhanced with After Effects. Despite the experimental workflow, I adhered to familiar techniques with classic editing and color grading. specially composed soundtrack added the final touch. (Léo CANNONE)

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Best Technical Achievement

Snowfall by Bae Jun-won – Korea | 2024 – 14 minutes

On a winter night with snowfall, Yuko lies soundly asleep beneath the snowy mountains. In the night of 1999, a blizzard blankets everything in pure white. Left behind, Soyo waits for Yuko, who will never return, amidst the snow piled upon her corpse. This story, begins with questions about loss and contemplation, starts from where words cease. Aside from the screenplay, various AI technologies were utilized in the production of this work. (BAE Jun-won)

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Jury’s Special Mentions

Latex Kid by Fran Gas – Spain | 2024 – 10 minutes

‘Latex Kid,’ a rock star with latex skin, tries to survive in a decadent society. 100% of the images in this film are generated with Artificial Intelligence, specifically with Midjourney(Text-to-Image). The movement of each image has been generated with the generative AIs: Pika Labs and Runway Gen-2. The final upscaling to 4K was done using Topaz AI. (Fran GAS)

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One More Pumpkin by Kwon Hansl – Korea | 2023 – 3 minutes

One More Pumpkin is a mystery horror film that tells the secretive story of a Korean elderly couple who live over 200 years, exploring the theme of human greed. The bizarre and novel visuals, combining Western Halloween culture and Eastern imagery created through generative AI, offer audiences a fresh experience that only AI FILM can provide. It utilizes AI technologies such as T2I (Text-to-Image), I2V (Image-to-Video), and AI Super-Resolution. (KWON Hansl)

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Audience Award

Snowfall by Bae Jun-won – Korea | 2024 – 14 minutes

Korean Fantastic: Features

Korean Fantastic Film

Esper’s Light by Jung Jae-hoon – Korea | 2024 – 147 minutes

Esper’s Light is, above all, a film filled with sensory pleasures. The task of creating the visual pleasure in the film is carried out with the awareness that the nature of this pleasure includes not only enjoyment and joy but also pain and confusion in similar textures. This film, which draws a group of dozens of teenagers to the center, alternates between documentary footage that observes their daily lives and the fantastical world of a low-budget B-movie genre. The records collected directly from reality interlock with the fictional symbols of various genres (SF, fantasy, monster movies, adventure films, crime films), constructing an image of a world that cannot be reduced to traditional representation logic. In this stage, JUNG Jae-hoon reconstructs the archetypal subject of ‘the man with the camera’ into the contemporary form of ‘teenagers with smartphones.’ The image of teenagers holding smartphones, looking at the light of display screens, and leaving posts on social media platforms transforms into adventurous subjects holding torches, looking at the light supplied to the entire city, and exploring forests and islands. Esper’s Light, with countless characters, scenes, and symbols appearing and disappearing abruptly, is an adventurous and bizarre work that renews the material form of cinema. (KIM Byeonggyu)

Korean Fantastic Best Director

Idiot Girls and School Ghost: School Anniversary by Kim Min-ha – Korea | 2024 – 90 minutes

Ji-yeon (Kim Do-yeon), a high school senior who dreams of becoming a film director but can’t manage to score higher than the 8th grade on her college entrance exams, stumbles upon a video tape from 1998. She learns that her senior classmates, who played hide and seek with a ghost in the school on the night of the school’s founding anniversary, eventually scored perfect marks on their college entrance exams! Determined, she and her friends decide to play hide and seek with the ghost themselves. Joining her are Hyun-jung (Kang Shin-hee), who can easily carry a heavy camera thanks to her immense strength; Eun-byul (Son Ju-yeon), an aspiring actress obsessed with her vlog despite having no subscribers; and Min-joo (Jeong Ha-dam), a Japanese culture otaku at an extraordinary level. Together, they face the ghost in an extraordinary manner. At every potentially clichéd moment, they call out “cliché!” “melodrama!” and “jump scare!” to preemptively tackle triteness and sublimate the genre’s stereotypes and weaknesses into humor, making it impossible not to laugh. Successfully transforming the common setting of a school horror into an irresistibly funny comic horror film, the grand finale adorned by Jeong Ha-dam as Min-joo is particularly captivating. This is a feature film by director Kim Min-ha, who has showcased excellent humor in his shorts Red Mask KF94 (2022) and Burger Song Challenge (2023). (PARK Got)

Fantastic Actors

Kim Daegun for The Tenants (dir. Yoon Eunkyoung) – Korea | 2023 – 89 minutes

Seoul is no longer a city in pursuit of happiness. At least, not in the future depicted in this film. There, the protagonist KIM Shin-dong coughs endlessly as he struggles to survive. The Tenants unfolds this landscape in black and white, adding vital imagination to the present-day Seoul. This effective strategy not only creates a unique atmosphere for the film but also serves as a mirror reflecting how our current reality closely resembles a bleak future. To avoid being evicted from his rental home, Shin-dong sublets the bathroom. This so-called ‘sub-sublease’ leads to a tense and stressful situation as people with conflicting interests are crammed into a small space. The film resolves this tension through a labyrinthine mystery and a heavy twist, characteristic of director YOON Eunkyoung. People push others into increasingly narrow and dark corners to avoid being displaced from their own positions. The film’s ending, where one faces the harsh reality in a secluded corner, may reveal the eerie true face of the city we live in. (Rhana JANG)

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Park Ju-hyun for You Will Die in 6 Hours (Lee Yun-seok) – Korea | 2024 – 91 minutes

The title says it all. While walking down the street, Jung-yoon hears from a stranger, Joon-woo, “You will die in six hours.” Joon-woo claims that the moment he saw Jung-yoon, he could see her death. Torn between doubt and unease, Jung-yoon spends the remaining six hours with Joon-woo. As they continue their journey together, it becomes clear that Joon-woo’s foresight is not limited to Jung-yoon but is part of a series of unfolding events. As new aspects of Jung-yoon, Joon-woo, and Detective Ki-hoon, who is chasing the case, are revealed like turning over cards, the audience must deduce whether to trust Joon-woo and who the culprit of the case is. The film shifts direction sharply, passing the arrow of suspicion from one character to another as if handing over a relay baton. Will Joon-woo’s premonition come true, or can death be prevented? The tension remains high until the very last moment. (Rhana JANG)

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Korean Fantastic Audience Award

You Will Die in 6 Hours by Lee Yun-seok – Korea | 2024 – 91 minutes

Nonghyup Award

Base Station by Park Syeyoung, Yeon Yeji – Korea | 2024 – 67 minutes

If the previous work, The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra (2022), was clad in the skin of a monster movie, Base Station can be described as an SF black comedy. Eden believes that her younger brother Hyunho is suffering from ‘electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome’ and flees to escape electromagnetic waves. However, even in the mountains, Hyunho’s condition does not improve. They merely continue a life isolated from society. In PARK Syeyoung’s films, something is always being transported. It could be second-hand trade goods (Cashback), live fish for a gang boss (Godspeed), a mattress where moldy life forms grow, or simply a gaze (Vertigo). In Base Station, what is being transported is intangible, the invisible waves of ‘electromagnetic waves’ themselves. Eden tries to escape the invisible with Hyunho. However, the first scene of the film, as they head into the mountains, subtly reveals that the electromagnetic waves are pursuing the siblings as if possessed by ghosts. The world ghostly haunted by invisible electromagnetic waves is depicted through the unique energy of director PARK Syeyoung and YEON Yeji, who also stars in the film. (PARK Dong-soo)

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Jury’s Special Mention

Pig That Survived Foot-and-Mouth Disease by Hur Bum-wook – Korea | 2024 – 105 minutes

A pig buried alive in a pit due to a deadly epidemic and a soldier who suffered constant violence from his superiors run away to the mountains. In the place where the half-human pig and the half-animal human are hiding, there are a herd of starving wild boars desperately looking for a way to survive, and a frustrated human looking for a place to end his own life hanging from every tree branch. Following the powerful opening scene that denounces the merciless violence caused by humans, what the audience faces is a repetition of bottomless despair and angry cries. The forest, which looks beautiful at first glance when warm light shines on it, seems to be a refuge for beings that are neither fully human nor animal, and at the same time a trap that cannot be escaped. In HUR Bum-wook’s cruel world, the pig’s wish to become a perfect human is futile. Amidst the bloodshed on mutilated bodies and the push towards psychological extremes, there are rare moments of relief. Whether human or beast, there is still a glimmer of hope. (LEE Kyunghwa)

Watcha’s Pick

Idiot Girls and School Ghost: School Anniversary by Kim Min-ha – Korea | 2024 – 90 minutes

Korean Fantastic: Shorts

Best Korean Short Film

Lovers on Friday Night by Park Yong-shin – Korea | 2024 – 26 minutes

On a Friday night, a couple is about to embark on a new romance. The man doesn’t want to part ways, while the woman is troubled by an issue waiting at home. This terrifying problem, chilling to the core, will become a painful metaphor of fear for the couple just beginning their love. (HA Myungmi)

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Jury’s Special Mention

Circle by Joung Yumi – Korea | 2024 – 7 minutes

Is the circle that a child drew carelessly a representation of a club, or society, just like the title Circle? Are the people gathered inside trying not to step outside a reflection of rules? Is the way they move slightly to make space for one another an example of interaction? Are they all looking in the same direction a sign of a common goal? Are they a community? Can we call this circle an institution? If so, who created this institution? Director JOUNG Yumi thus proposes a new form of play to us. (NAH Ho-won)

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Audience Award for Korean Short Film

MM, UH, OH, AH by Choi Na-hye – Korea | 2024 – 16 minutes

Bockey LEE, President of ‘Tong Hal Tong (go through),’ Communication, is a linguist and anthropologist who created the “MM, UH, OH, AH” conversational method for modern people. And now he’s celebrating the 13th anniversary of the MM, UH, OH, AH dialectic with a series of private lectures. Sing along to “MM, UH, OH, AH,” a magical dialog for modern people who are tormented by the sounds of others, and it will bring peace to your soul. Don’t miss this “exclusive~” talk by Ms. Bockey Lee! (HA Myungmi)

Méliès International Festivals Federation (MIFF) Award for Best Asian Film

Steppenwolf by Adilkhan Yerzhanov – Kazakhstan | 2023 – 102 minutes

A small village situated in the vast wilderness. The village descends into chaos and bloody violence due to clashes between the police and rioters following looting and suppression. Amid the confusion, a criminal being transported picks up a police uniform and joins in the murder and violence. Suddenly, a woman named Tamara appears and offers him a reward if he helps her find her kidnapped son. Reluctantly accepting the offer, the man sets out with Tamara on a journey to find her son. Their journey across the wilderness becomes a violent race through a dystopian world where law and order have collapsed. Adіlkhan Yerzhanov, a director representing Central Asian cinema, has been noted for his challenging forms and original cinematic world over the past decade. This time, he blends and twists the universe of the Mad Max series with the western genre to create a dystopian world where the distinction between hero and anti-hero, good and evil, and morality is blurred. Like Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf referenced in the title, the film presents an intense and captivating story of a lonely anti-hero’s revenge against a great evil, delivering stylish genre thrills. (KIM Young-woo)

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NETPAC Award

Who’ll Stop the Rain by Su I-hsuan – Taiwan | 2023 – 114 minutes

In 1994, Chi-wei, a student who has entered art college, participates in a protest against Professor Chien, who unilaterally disadvantages students who do not follow him. Amidst the vibrant energy of dreaming of a new era and freedom, Chi-wei gradually becomes attracted to Ching. Ching is in a relationship with Kuang, the leader of the protest. However, the mutual feelings between Chi-wei and Ching are short-lived as Ching pushes Chi-wei away. As the protest faces difficulties, conflicts and rifts arise among the students. Just as they struggle with how to navigate these challenges, Chi-wei and Ching must also decide what to do with their feelings for each other. The process of the two women realizing their true emotions and voicing them is superbly intertwined with the spirit of resistance and the fervor for democracy that drove Taiwan’s political reforms in the 1990s. The cinematography, which delicately captures the characters’ emotions with serene and clear visuals, deeply enhances this perspective. (Rhana JANG)

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Odd Family Award

Pigsy by Chiu Li Wei – Taiwan | 2023 – 96 minutes

Pigsy survives with street smarts and resilience in the harsh old world, though he remains somewhat immature. One day, during the grand New Year celebration, many are announced as being permitted to enter the New World, and Pigsy’s name is on the list. Excited to finally make his grandmother proud, he soon discovers his entry permit was a mistake. Determined to keep this secret and reach the New World, he makes a secret deal with Bull Demon King, providing critical information from Sanzang’s system in exchange for passage. However, Pigsy learns that this deal endangers many lives, including his grandmother’s. Now, he must become the hero of his own Journey to the West, protecting both his loved ones and the world.

Pigsy won the Best Animated Feature at the 60th Golden Horse Award, which offers the added charm of seeing characters from the classic novel Journey to the West cleverly and cutely reinterpreted. Additionally, popular Taiwanese actor Greg Hsu voices the main character, Pigsy, while Taiwanese youth stars also lend their voices to the roles of Tang Sanzang and Sha Wujing. (Kani KIM)

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