Festivals: Busan IFF
Busan 2022 Review: SAGAL: SNAKE AND SCORPION, Gambling Loan Shark Documentary Makes for Addictive Viewing
Two years after the documentary Self-Portrait 2020, the best new Korean film at the 25th Busan International Film Festival, director Lee Dong-woo has returned to Busan with another long and engrossing portrait of a man whose addictions are causing his...
Busan 2022 Review: THE DREAM SONGS, Moving and Marvelous Portrait of Teen Friendship
For the past half a dozen years or so, some of the very best debut Korean films have chronicled friendships between young girls. Filled with the fleeting excitement of youth and the complex, mutable feelings that underpin the process of...
Busan 2022 Review: MOTHER LAND, Gorgeous Korean Stop Motion Animation Heads Out onto the Ice
Unlike Hollywood, France or Japan, Korea isn't known for any particular kind of animation. However, the country is overflowing with animators, and when not being outsourced to foreign productions, they churn out unique local films that each march to the...
Busan 2022 Review: CONNECT Sees Miike Takashi Trade J-Horror for K-Drama
Miike Takashi becomes the first Japanese director to dip his toe into the ever-expanding world of K-dramas, helming all six episodes of Disney’s upcoming fantasy horror series Connect. Adapted from Shin Daesung’s webtoon of the same name, this ghoulishly entertaining...
Busan 2022 Review: A WILD ROOMER, Wry and Stimulating Character Study Delights
Screening in the Busan International Film Festival's signature New Currents competition section, A Wild Roomer, the delightfully droll debut of director Lee Jeong-hong, is a refreshing character study that unfurls around a minor mystery. The film begins much as it...
Busan 2022 Review: BONES AND ALL, An All-Consuming Adolescent Love Story
Timothée Chalamet reunites with his Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino for another unconventional romance, the cannibal road movie Bones And All, adapted from Camille DeAngelis’ award-winning 2016 novel of the same name. Chalamet is just one of...
Busan 2022 Review: BARDO, FALSE CHRONICLE OF A HANDFUL OF TRUTHS, Pretentious but oh so Pretty
It has been seven years since Mexican filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s last film, the epic western The Revenant, which scored him his second consecutive Best Director Oscar after winning for Birdman the previous year. Considering the subject matter of his...
Busan 2022 Review: THE POLICEMAN'S LINEAGE, Korean Thriller Delivers Slick Package
When you've been deprived of something for an extended period of time, anything that comes close to the real McCoy starts to look a little better than it did before. That may well apply to The Policeman's Lineage, director Lee...
Busan 2022 Review: NEXT SOHEE, Bae Doona Shines in July Jung's Memorable Slowburn
Good things come to those who wait, and so it is with Next Sohee, the blunt and powerful new film from director July Jung, which bowed at the Cannes Film Festival this spring, following eight years after her sensational debut,...
Busan International Film Festival Returns to Full Strength with Packed 27th Edition
For the first time since 2019, the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) will return to full force, with a complete lineup for its upcoming 27th edition, which will welcome a full complement of international guests for the first time since...
Busan 2021 Review: SEIRE, Ace Horror Debut Plunges Us into Korean Superstition
Superstition and fatherhood collide in Park Kang's crisply staged and chilling indie horror debut Seire, which had its world premiere in the New Currents competition at the Busan International Film Festival. Channeling Rosemary's Baby and The Wailing, this low-budget gem...
Busan 2021 Review: THE APARTMENT WITH TWO WOMEN, Sensational Debut Is an Electric Dysfunctional Family Drama
One of the most dysfunctional families of recent memory has its dirty laundry aired out in the hypnotic The Apartment with Two Women, an ambitious and surprisingly mature debut from 29-year-old director Kim Se-in. In a barnstorming performance, Yang Mal-bok...
Busan 2021 Review: HEAVEN: TO THE LAND OF HAPPINESS, An Infectious Return to Form for Im Sang-soo
The Busan International Film Festival puts a strong first foot forward this year with its tightly paced and effortlessly entertaining opening film Heaven: To the Land of Happiness, marking a return to form for director Im Sang-soo. Ace Korean cinema...
COP SERET: Future Festival Dates For Hit Icelandic Buddy Cop Comedy
A tough super-cop, in denial about his sexuality, falls in love with his new partner while investigating a string of bank robberies where nothing seems to have been stolen. This is a public service announcement that the Icelandic buddy...
Blood Window 2020: Award Winners Announced
Blood Window wraps up today down in Buenos Aires and while we are in the home stretch of completing our report on the pitch session, Blood Window LAB, the awards were dished out today. The first five categories come...
Blood Window 2020: Official Screenings & Spotlight on International Projects Announced
Prior to the weekend Variety first announced the official selection of screenings that will take place during Blood Window at the end of the month. Under normal circumstances these films would be screened throughout the duration of the festival....
Busan 2020 Review: COALESCE Shows Cambodia as a Land Compromised by Opportunity
Three young men look to forge their own paths in the fast-developing Kingdom of Cambodia in French filmmaker Jessé Miceli’s keenly observed debut feature. Employing non-professional actors and an entirely Cambodian cast, what follows is a coherent and engaging story...
Busan 2020 Review: SPEED OF HAPPINESS Delivers Soothing Snapshot of a Unique Profession
Documentary filmmaker Park Hyuck-jee, known for the charming documentary With or Without You, is back with his latest non-fiction work, his first to be invited to Busan. Set in the mountainous Oze region of Central Japan, the pleasurable and satisfying...
Busan 2020 Review: FIGHTER, Compelling Character Study Winds Up Pulling Its Punches
After opening the festival in 2018 with Beautiful Days, director Jero Yun returned to Busan this year with his second narrative feature Fighter, which once again focuses on a North Korean defector's difficult experience adjusting in South Korea, and how...
Busan 2020 Review: In THREE, Soviet Rule Made Monsters Of Everyone
A police intern becomes the lead investigator in one of the most gruesome and notorious murder cases in modern history, in Ruslan Pak's bleak and introspective new thriller. Inspired by the true story of Kazakh serial killer and cannibal Nikolai...
