Bucheon Choice World

BIFAN¡¯s international feature competition section presents films that push beyond convention through bold new worldviews, distinctive styles, and innovative approaches to genre cinema. This year¡¯s lineup features 11 films by emerging genre filmmakers from around the world, including Korea. The selection encompasses highly anticipated titles as well as world premiere screenings from sensuous queer narratives and unsettling folk horror to vibrant comedy.

Bucheon Choice Korean

The notable characteristic of the 10 films selected for this year¡¯s Bucheon Choice Korean: Feature is their genre diversity. Alongside horror films that embody BIFAN¡¯s signature genre identity, there are thrillers with distinctive tones and films that play imaginative games of hide-and-seek with audiences through intriguing narrative twists.

Bucheon Choice AI Films

A total of 576 films from around the world were submitted this year to Bucheon Choice: AI Films, BIFAN¡¯s international AI film competition section. The program presents carefully selected works that creatively employ AI technologies in areas such as visuals, screenwriting, and sound, opening up new horizons in filmmaking. Expanding beyond short films to include feature-length works, the section introduces 15 films distinguished by their advanced technological achievements and sophisticated storytelling.

B Extreme

The signature section that most vividly embodies BIFAN¡¯s identity. Packed with blood, madness, exhilarating imagination, and seductive energy, it offers audiences the bold world of B-movies where the genre thrills of action, thriller, and horror explode onto the screen. This year¡¯s lineup explores collective anxieties rooted in local folklore, mythology, and taboos from various regions, while also highlighting female-driven narratives and queer sensibilities. The section presents a wide-ranging selection of works that capture the diverse trends and sensibilities shaping the forefront of contemporary genre cinema.

Fanta-scape

Fanta-scapee presents a vibrant selection of fantastic cinema that maps out new landscapes of genre filmmaking, ranging from delightful comedies and stylish romances to wildly inventive fantasy films. This year¡¯s lineup embraces a broad spectrum of works that break away from conventional genre formulas, featuring eccentric imagination, cult humor, and black comedy alongside films filled with emotional resonance and overwhelming cinematic scale. In particular, the short-form drama screenings featured in the Platform Special Screening: Short-form Cinema will offer audiences in Bucheon a fresh and distinctive cinematic experience unlike any before.

Strange Hommage

A section dedicated to restored classics and digitally remastered works that have left a lasting mark on the history of genre cinema. Audiences will have the chance to revisit the horror film A Nightmare (2000), a landmark of the Korean cinema renaissance era, as well as A Remodeled Beauty (1975), celebrated for its distinctive take on Korean body horror, both presented in newly remastered versions. In addition, the special program ¡°French Time in Philosophical Sci-Fi¡± showcases French sci-fi masterpieces that combine philosophical imagination with striking visual artistry, just as the title suggests. Through these rarely screened works, audiences will be invited into strange yet captivating worlds of imagination, exploring time, reality, and humanity.

Fantastic Shorts

A celebration of limitless possibilities in short-form storytelling. Fantastic Shorts is a section dedicated to the unique charm of short films that capture diverse stories and imaginative worlds often beyond the reach of feature-length cinema. This year, the section showcases 20 international short films carefully selected from 1,340 submissions worldwide, alongside 33 Korean short films chosen through a highly competitive selection process from 1,681 entries.

Asian Genre Films 99

Celebrating its 30th edition this year, BIFAN launches the three-year project, Asian Genre Films 99. Jointly organized with the Korean Film Archive, the initiative seeks to map the landscape of Asian cinema through the lens of genre–a defining identity of BIFAN–and to offer a systematic exploration of its evolution and trends.

AI Frontier

AI Frontier is a non-competitive invitation section showcasing films created through diverse applications of AI technology, ranging from works generated entirely with AI to projects that combine live-action filmmaking with AI-driven techniques. Organized into both feature-length and short film sections, the program includes six supported projects from the Fantastic Film School: Creator Course. Presenting the artistic possibilities of future cinema, the section introduces a wide variety of works that can be enjoyed across generations from children to adults.

Neighborhood Cinema Tour

In an industry where the vast majority of genre films are directed by men, compiling a list of works created by women directors and tracing their chronology and key milestones carries meaning far beyond a simple attempt at balance. It reveals that genre is not a masculine noun, nor does it belong to any particular gender. This year, together with the Women in Film Korea, BIFAN looks back on the imprint women directors have left on genre cinema over the past 30 years and brings these works back before audiences once again. From this effort, a list of 11 films has been created, five of which will be screened in theaters for festival audiences.