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Busan selector to visit Australia in July

Screen Australia will host a visit by Busan International Film programmer Jin Park this July.

The 19th Busan International Film Festival will be held 2–11 October 2014 in South Korea. It is one of the largest film festivals in Asia with admissions in 2013 totalling 217,865. It is also home to the Asian Film Market, which last year hosted booths from 32 countries and 198 companies.

Jin Park is the programmer for the World Cinema section of the festival which he joined in March. He has been a film critic for various Korean film magazines, including KINO and Film2.0, and has served as executive programmer for the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival, as well as a programmer for the Green Film Festival in Seoul.

The World Cinema section is a showcase of non-Asian feature films from around the world. Other sections of the festival include Gala Presentations for new films from established directors; New Currents, an international competition of first and second feature films; Flash Forward, new narrative features from non-Asian filmmakers; Wide Angle, for outstanding shorts, animation, documentary and experimental films; and Midnight Passion, for new horror, sci-fi and cult films.

In 2013, four Australian features and one short were selected for Busan

  • Mystery Road (director Ivan Sen, producer David Jowsey) screened in the World Cinema section;
  • Canopy (director Aaron Wilson, producer Katrina Fleming) and
  • The Rocket (director Kim Mordaunt, producer Sylvia Wilczynski) screened in Flash Forward;
  • Red Obsession (director David Roach, director/producer Warwick Ross) screened in Wide Angle,
  • as did short film The Fence (writer/director Lucy Gaffy).

Jin Park is interested in seeing new eligible feature films that were completed no earlier than October 2013. See the BIFF Submission Guide for the rules and regulations.

Filmmakers with shorts or genre films should submit their films directly to the festival by 30 June (shorts) or 31 July (Midnight Passion).

Additionally, for those filmmakers interested in working with Korea in the future and for whom their film’s selection at Busan may offer networking opportunities, the recently negotiated Korea–Australia Free Trade Agreement (KAFTA) includes an annex that will operate as a co-production treaty between the two countries. 

Filmmakers with eligible feature films for Jin Park to see should contact Dale Fairbairn by 2 July 2014 to have your film included in his schedule.