The Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN) is a representative cultural festival that symbolizes Bucheon, a UNESCO creative literary city, which took its first steps in 1997. The works of Peter Jackson, Christopher Nolan, Darren Aronofsky, Guillermo del Toro, Jang Jun-hwan, and Na Hong-jin, who have become masters now, have been discovered and introduced through BIFAN. They raised the issue of censorship with provocative special exhibitions, including the Blue Movie Special Exhibition, and formed a fan community with Show Brothers martial arts and Bollywood Special Exhibition. Despite the ups and downs caused by the change of power, BIFAN's non-stop energy has been loved and supported by audiences and domestic and foreign guests for 29 years with new sensibilities, rich imaginations, and unique programs. With the motto of "It's Okay to Be Strange," I want to be a film festival that cheers up non-mainstream sensibilities and discovers and encourages talent pushed back by the periphery.

The talents of genre films that BIFAN discovers and introduces are further amplified and met with the world through BIFAN's industrial program, B.I.G. Based on the 'Network of Asian Fantastic Films (NAFF), which was created in 2008 for the production and development of genre films, B.I.G. has developed into a platform that represents today's genre film industry. Through the world's first genre film project market 'It Project' and the Fantastic Film School,' we are discovering and fostering Asian genre film artists, accumulating data on Asian popular films and creating networks with industry leaders through 'Made in Asia.'

In 2020, we created the 'Ghost Story Campus' for the discovery, collection, and creation of ghost stories. The Ghost Story Campus, which believes in the power of stories, is BIFAN's signature program, creating an ecosystem of ghost stories of discovery, creation, and distribution centered on ghost stories and leading them to a place of innovation that allows the meaning of BIFAN's value to coexist continuously.

BIFAN introduced immersive content and technology status of VR (virtual reality) and XR (extended reality) from 2016 as the first of the international film festivals in Korea, and is unfolding the evolution of storytelling brought about by the convergence of technology and art through Beyond Reality, which has grown into an independent sector. In addition, it has established itself as a future-oriented platform to lead innovation by introducing artificial intelligence (AI) to the entire film, including education, production, and screenings, for the first time in the film festival. It is leading the AI paradigm in the video industry by introducing 'Buchon Choice: AI Movie,' an international competition category for AI films for the first time in Korea, and holding AI international conferences and AI filmmaking workshops. BIFAN will continue its challenging journey across the boundaries of technology and art, experimenting with new narratives and possibilities that AI films create together.