By The 31st Busan International Film Festival wrapped its ten-day run on October 15 with a festival first: its largest audience in more than a decade. Organizers reported 200,043 admissions across screenings — the highest total since 2015 — while a political firestorm over a Korean box office hit and an Iranian director’s wartime remarks kept politics center stage throughout.
Busan Cinema Center (Credits: Variety)
Record Crowds for Asia’s Biggest Festival
The 31st edition ran from October 6 to 15, and the numbers tell a story of resurgence. Screenings accounted for 200,043 admissions, and when talk sessions, stage greetings and side events are added, total attendance climbed to 277,027 — roughly 40,000 more than last year. Festival organizers credited a reshuffled schedule for the uptick.
The festival opened with the intimate Korean drama The Table: Day and Night from director Kim Jong-kwan and closed with a ceremony at the Busan Cinema Center hosted by actor Yim Si-wan. This was also the first edition following the festival’s A-list accreditation from the International Federation of Film Producers Associations, and the guest list showed it.
Among the notable attendees were Michelle Yeoh, who received this year’s Asian Filmmaker of the Year award, and Hong Kong director Ann Hui, honored with the Camellia Award for her contributions to empowering women in film. Alfonso Cuarón and Maggie Gyllenhaal made their first official visits to the country for BIFF, while Hirokazu Kore-eda, Lav Diaz, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Fan Bingbing also walked the Busan red carpet. From Korea came Lee Chang-dong, Na Hong-jin and Kim Jee-woon.
A Political Storm
Record crowds did not mean a quiet festival. A fierce political row erupted over the Korean box office hit The Assassin(s), and Iranian director Majid Majidi put war politics at the center of the conversation during his appearance. The tension underlined how Busan has become a flashpoint not just for cinema, but for the cultural fault lines running through Asian filmmaking.
Meanwhile, the Asian Contents & Film Market signaled an industry closing ranks. The market drew more than 30,000 visitors, with 339 companies from 32 countries exhibiting — evidence that even as politics divided headlines, Asia’s producers were doing serious business behind closed doors.
An Oscar-Qualifying Triumph
The biggest prize went to Iranian director Majid Majidi’s Midday Meal, a drama about a teacher in a poor Iranian village forced to turn to smuggling to save his school. The top award was decided by a seven-member jury led by Chinese auteur Zhang Yimou.
The win carries extra weight this year: under revised Academy rules, winning one of six designated festivals — now including Busan — grants immediate eligibility for the Oscar in the Best International Feature Film category. That puts Majidi’s film directly on the road to the Academy Awards.
Elsewhere in the awards program, the Mongolian-German production Zogsool collected four prizes, while Spanish Oscar contender La Bola Negra added another audience award to its festival run. All told, the 31st BIFF presented 315 films, cementing its status as the center of gravity for Asian cinema.
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Source: Variety — read the full story there.
