The Pusan International Film Festival, South Korean Cinema and Globalisation
The Pusan International Film Festival, South Korean Cinema and Globalisation
by SooJeong Ahn Hong Kong University Press
Founded only in 1996, the Busan International Film Festival (the South Korean city is now Busan under revised Romanisation) is widely regarded among both industry executives and critics as one of the most important cinema-related events of the year.
Despite being the new kid on the block in the region - its counterpart in Hong Kong raised its curtain in 1977 and Tokyo in 1988 - the festival can now boast of being a platform on which prominent and promising Asian filmmakers introduce their films to the world.
For example, if the Hong Kong festival could claim to have brought worldwide attention to the mainland's so-called Fifth Generation directors - among them Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou - Busan could counter by declaring it spawned Sixth Generation stalwarts such as Jia Zhangke.
Indeed, the BIFF is a remarkable and eventful story in itself, a sprawling beast ripe for reflection. Having worked for the festival from 1998 to 2002, SooJeong Ahn - who has since earned her PhD in film festival studies at the University of Nottingham in Britain - is well-placed for such a task. With The Pusan International Film Festival, South Korean Cinema and Globalisation she offers a multi-layered analysis of the festival as a convergence point of national and international cultural, political and economic flows sweeping into and across South Korean society over the past two decades.
Ahn's recollections about the roots of the festival itself are interesting. While largely the brainchild of a group of academics and film programmers, preparations for the festival remained in limbo until municipal authorities decided in February 1996 to throw their weight behind the event. It wasn't out of a love of cinema, though: the festival was merely seen as part of a package promoting the city of Busan in the run-up to its hosting of the Asian Games in 2002.
This anecdote illustrates how the BIFF was never meant to be merely an artistic exercise, and that festivals in general are no longer just concerns for stargazers, cinephiles or movers and shakers in the film business.
Based on research undertaken on the first 10 editions of the festival as well as interviews with critics, programmers and industry executives, Ahn delves into the relevance of the film festival as a cornerstone of the cultural and economic development of South Korea. She examines the raison d'?tre of some of the festival's retrospectives, or what she calls the 'programming politics' behind the conception of showcasing Asian films.
She also shows how the festival made the most of its particular position in the country and in the international marketplace of creative ideas and historical memories.
In fact, by situating the festival as an important player in Asian cinema - a point made in a chapter dedicated to the Pusan Promotion Plan, a 'project market' in which filmmakers get to meet potential investors for funding future productions - Ahn suggests filmmaking is just as globalised an undertaking as many other industries beyond the cultural sphere.
There is also an interesting comparison between the Busan and Hong Kong festivals, although the book could definitely benefit from more research on the latter - perhaps that's a job for a Hong Kong author.
