The 24th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival Selects
30 Projects from 21 Countries for NAFF Project Market!



[One-on-one It Project business meetings at BIFAN 2019]
 

The 24th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (Festival Director: SHIN Chul, hereafter BIFAN) has announced the 30 official selections from 21 countries for this year’s NAFF project market. The selections consist of 19 projects for the It Project (including one Korean-Vietnamese co-production) and 11 projects for Project Spotlight Korea. A total of 181 projects from 40 countries were submitted for consideration this year. Selected projects are listed in the table below.

The selections possess various characteristics that are influenced by the cultural area in which they hail from. This year’s projects from Europe and North America are highly experimental in terms of genre, while the South American projects make you anticipate seeing them in their completed form, although they are still just in their developmental stages. (It Projects include co-productions between other countries and Asian countries, as well as projects by filmmakers who wish to co-produce with an Asian country.) Projects from South Korea and other parts of Asia captured the philosophy that lies deep within the framework of genre films by exploring a variety of topics, such as tradition and political/social conflict, gender identity, and class distinction. (Project Spotlight highlights projects from one Asian country each year; this year’s spotlight will be on South Korea.)

The judges for this year included Kini S. KIM (Asian Acquisitions Representative, The Jokers Films), KIM Young (producer, MIRU Pictures), Jonathan KIM (CEO of Hanmac Culture Group), and Joyce Heeyoung CHO (professor, Busan Asian Film School). In order to prevent the further spread of COVID-19, the judges screened the projects online from May 8 (Fri.) to 22 (Fri.). “Screening these outstanding projects with NAFF was a special opportunity and an honor for all of the judges. Each project was planned so meticulously, and I hope to see them at BIFAN as completed films in the near future,” expressed judge Kini S. KIM.

The 30 official selections will be candidates for the NAFF awards, which present the winning projects with cash awards and production support. The amount of support and scale of the awards have increased for this year’s project market. A new feature this year includes the launch of the Work In Progress category for projects that have completed filming, for which a total of 300 million won in post-production support will be awarded. Two other award categories are being added this year – the Asian Discovery Award and the Korean Discovery Award – to bring about a renaissance of genre film and to discover/support talented filmmakers; a cash prize of 15 million won will be awarded to the winners of the two categories. In addition, the NAFF Korean Award, which aims to promote the development of Korean genre films, has also expanded. This year, a total of 30 million won will be rewarded to three outstanding film projects. The NAFF project market’s Bucheon Award (grand prize) and NAFF Award (runner-up prize), which have also increased in value, will be awarding a total of 35 million won to two projects. NAFF (Network of Asian Fantastic Films) was established to boost the production and development of genre films in Asia, and is currently in its 13th year.

From July 11-15, while the NAFF project market is in session, filmmakers of the selected projects will be given the opportunity to meet with producers, investors, and distributors from all over the world who work with genre films. The one-on-one business meetings will be conducted via an online platform this year to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The 24th BIFAN will be held this year from July 9-16. Films will be screened in theaters in Bucheon, and will also be made available on online platforms.
 

Project Spotlight: Korea Selections