BiFan 2017: THE ENDLESS and BEHIND THE DARK NIGHT Triumph on Closing Night

After eight days of screenings and round-the-clock BBQ, the 21st edition of the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BiFan) held its closing ceremony at Bucheon's City Hall on Friday, July 21st. Topping the awards during the night was The Endless, the third feature from Screen Anarchy favorites Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. The winner in the Korean section was the debut film Behind the Dark Night by Shim Chan-yang.

In Bucheon Choice, Sadrac González-Perellón's Black Hollow Cage was awarded the Jury prize while Giddens Ko's Mon Mon Mon Monsters took home the NH Audience Award. A special mention was reserved for Hentaida (I Am a Pervert) by Anzai Hajime.


Looking at the Korean Fantastic section, Park Ji-soo earned the Best Actress accolade for her role in The End of April while Oh Ryoong and Ryu Seong-hyun shared the Best Actor prize for playing in, appropriately, The Gravity of Acting. Im Heung-soon's documentary Ryeohaeng won the Audience Award.

Other feature prizes included two for Taiwanese films, the European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation (EFFFF) Asian Award, which went to Godspeed by Chung Mong-hong, and the NETPAC Award, given to Chen Yu-Hsun's The Village of No Return. The Save Energy, Save Earth Film Award was taken by Wolfgang Groos' Roby and Toby's Fantastic Voyager and the BIFAN Children's Jury Award, which was bestowed on Andreas Dresen's The Legend of Timm Tyler or The Boy Who Sold His Laughter.

The Bucheon Choice: Shorts jury (which included our very own Shelagh Rowan-Legg) gave its top prize to Alonso Ruizpalacios' Green and its Jury Prize to Natalia Siwicka's 16.03, while the Audience Award was snatched up by Hong Heng-fai's Crash. Jo Ba-reun's Vibration earned the Best Korean Short Film prize and Lee Soo-ah's Weight of the Hand was the Korean Short Audience Award recipient.

The ceremony was followed by a presentation of the closing film Gintama, the latest from Hentai Kamen director Yūichi Fukuda, and the festival is still on throughout the weekend with encore screenings. After that, just 350 odd days until we find ourselves once more lost in the long Bucheon nights. Until then, check back in the coming days for more reviews of some of what the fest had to offer this year.