BIFF 2012: Closing Press Conference - Awards and What's in Store for 2013

Part of MKC's coverage of the 17th Busan International Film Festival.

The 17th Busan International Film Festival just held its Closing press conference at which the award winners of the event were announced. Festival director Lee Yong-Kwan was in attendance along with the following Jury members: Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio; David Gilmour (New Currents Jury); Arturo Ripstein (Flash Forward Head Jury), Mun Jeong-hyun (BIFF Mecenat Jury); Min Yong Keun (Sonje Jury); Melis Behlil (FIPRECI Jury); and Beck Una (NETPAC Jury).

Though not really a competition festival, there are nevertheless many sponsored, audience and press association awards handed out at the festival in addition to BIFF's own short and documentary prizes. However, the most significant prizes are the New Currents and Flashforward awards which are given to the best first or second feature from Asian and non-Asian filmmakers respectively. Those went to 36 and Kayan for the former and Flower Buds for the latter.

36, from Thailand, also picked up the FIPRESCI prize but the big winner at this year's Busan Film Festival was O Muel's Jeju Island massacre pic Jiseul which walked away with four awards, including the CGV Movie Collage Award, the DGK Awards for Best Director (shared with Russian Novel's Shin Young-shick) and the NETPAC Jury Award. Shin Su-won's Pluto, Chung Ji-young's National Security and Lee Dongku's Fatal, three of the most hyped films of the fest, were left empty-handed but again, as this is not a big competition festival, this shouldn't really hurt their prospects.

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