The 24th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival Announces Winners of Short Film Awards
-Digital Video Editing with Adobe Premiere Pro: The Real-World Guide to Set Up and Workflow wins Best Korean Short Film award and Audience Award for Korean Short Film
-In the Bucheon Choice: Shorts section, The Third Person wins Best Short Film, The Arctic Syndrome wins Jury’s Choice for Short Film, and The Creature wins Audience Award for Short Film
-Blood Ties becomes first winner of the newly-established Watcha’s Pick Award
¤Ó(top row, from left to right) Writer KIM Seyoon, Actor LEE Minji, Watcha CEO PARK Taehoon, BIFAN Vice-chairman PARK Gunsub, Festival Director SHIN Chul, Winners: Director WANG Heesong, Director LEE Gwanju, Director HONG Seongyoon¤Ó
The 24th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (Festival Director: SHIN Chul, hereafter BIFAN) held an awards ceremony for the short films in competition on July 13. The ceremony, which was hosted by film journalist LEE Hwajung and director BAEK Jaeho, was attended by BIFAN vice-chairman PARK Gunsub, festival director SHIN Chul, Watcha CEO PARK Taehoon, jury members actor LEE Minji and writer KIM Seyoon, and more than 50 short film directors.
Director HONG Seongyoon of Digital Video Editing with Adobe Premiere Pro: The Real-World Guide to Set Up and Workflow arguably had the best evening of everyone in attendance. Digital Video Editing with Adobe Premiere Pro: The Real-World Guide to Set Up and Workflow was honored twice during the ceremony, as it took home the award for Best Korean Short Film and the Audience Award for Korean Short Film. The evening’s highest honor, the award for Best Short Film in the international competition section (Bucheon Choice: Shorts), went to The Third Person, directed by Pouya AMINPOURI from Iran. Blood Ties (directed by WANG Heesong) became the first film to win the Watcha’s Pick Award, which is a new category that was introduced this year.
¤ÓDirector HONG Seongyoon of Digital Video Editing with Adobe Premiere Pro: The Real-World Guide to Set Up and Workflow¤Ó
Digital Video Editing with Adobe Premiere Pro: The Real-World Guide to Set Up and Workflow, which is a film about films, tells the story of a cutting-room ghost that only appears for good cuts. Jury member KIM Seyoon, who gave a glowing account of the film, said, “Not even one second of the film has been erased from the memories of the jury members. Every type of genre film element that we want to see at BIFAN was captured in this one film.” Director HONG Seongyoon dedicated the award to everyone who was involved in the making of the film. After describing himself as an “inexperienced director who falls short,” HONG expressed that he “[believed] the crew members in every part of the film and the actors [were] being acknowledged.”
¤Ó(left) Director Pouya AMINPOURI of The Third Person & Director Borja ECHEVERRIA LAMATA of The Arctic Syndrome ¤Ó
The Third Person follows a police officer who is in pursuit of a patient that has escaped from a mental hospital. Jury member KANG Kuk Hyun remarked, “The director has an amazing ability to trap the audience through the main character’s internal story.” He added, “Out of all of the movies in the Bucheon Choice: Shorts section, this movie has the most powerful story.” Pouya AMINPOURI, who gave his acceptance speech via video, said, “This Bucheon Choice Best Short Film award is my first international award. I’m very happy and honored. This is a wonderful moment in my career.”
The Jury’s Choice for Short Film in the Bucheon Choice section was awarded to The Arctic Syndrome (directed by Borja ECHEVERRIA LAMATA/Spain). Jury member LEE Minji described The Arctic Syndrome as a “novel cult film in which [the director] expressed his outrageous imagination in his very own genre film.” She added, “I believe this is the type of originality that BIFAN needs to discover and support.” Director Borja ECHEVERRIA LAMATA, who accepted the award via a video that opened with “THANKS BUCHEON,” remarked, “Thank you so much. This is unbelievable.”
¤ÓDirector LEE Gwanju of The Creature¤Ó
The Bucheon Choice Audience Award for Short Film went to The Creature by LEE Gwanju, who is currently studying in France. Director LEE, who had to undergo a 14-day self-quarantine after flying in from France, expressed his gratitude to the audience by saying, “Once again, thank you so much for showing love for my film. I was happy that the film I made was invited to Asia’s largest [genre film festival], the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival. Now that I’ve won the Audience Award, I don’t know how to react.” The Well (directed by Neal DHAND) received an honorable mention from the jury for being another short that shows the power of short films. The jury explained, “Although it had a simple story, the connotative meaning of each cut and the poetic expression of the film make the viewer fall deeper into the ironic tragedy of the story.”
¤ÓDirector WANG Heesong of Blood Ties¤Ó
Blood Ties, which was selected for BIFAN’s Short Film Production Support Project last year, tells the story of a girl whose father turns into a zombie during a camping trip. “I was planning on looking into a different career path after the end of the festival because my parents are against me making films,” said director WANG Heesong during her acceptance speech. “This gives me a reason to tell my mom that I want to work in film a little longer.”
The 24th BIFAN, which is currently operating as a hybrid offline/online festival that puts safety first, has entered into the second half of the festivities. The winners of the competition sections for feature films will be announced on July 16 during the closing ceremony.