Ahead of its closing ceremony this evening, the 22nd Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) announced its awards today which included top honors in their signature New Currents competition for the Korean film After My Death from Kim Eui-seok and the Iranian feature Blockage by Mohsen Gharaei.
After My Death, which chronicles the difficult aftermath of a child's suicide and how it affects her school, classmates and family, also earned the Actress of the Year Award for its lead Jeon Yeo-been. The Actor of the Year Award went to Park Jong-hwan of Jeong Ga-young's second film Hit the Night.
The newly established Kim Ji-seok Award, in honor of the recently passed Executive Programmer of the festival, went to the Thai work Malila: The Farewell Flower from Anucha Boonyawatana and Daihachi Yoshida's The Scythian Lamb from Japan.
For documentaries, the BIFF Mecenat Awards went to the Korean film Soseongri by Park Bae-il and Kazuo Hara's Sennan Asbestos Disaster. The Sonje Awards for Best Short went to Kwak Eun-mi's A Hand-written Poster from Korea and the Indonesian short Madonna by Sinung Winahyoko.
Other awards including Zhou Quan's End of Summer from China which picked up the KNN Award, Busan Bank Award Recipient Pulse by Australia's Stevie Cruz-Martin, the Citizen Critics' Award for Lee Kang-hyun's local film Possible Faces, the Busan Cinephile Prize (Audience Award) was given to Andreas Hartmann's Free Man, a German-Japan co-production, the NETPAC Award for Best Asian Film went to Kim Joong-hyun's Korean film February and Shin Dong-seok walked away with the FIPRESCI Award for his New Currents title Last Child, another Korean film.
Meanwhile, the Vision Awards, which go to films in the Korean Cinema Today - Vision section, were handed out last night. The Vision Director Awards went to the directors of February and Hit the Night while the CGV Arthouse Award went to JEON Go-woon's debut Microhabitat starring Esom.
BIFF will close tonight with a screening of the world premiere of Sylvia Chang's new film Love Education.