BIFAN News

BIFAN News

Calling for NAFF It Project Entries

DATE2021.01.21Hit 1484


The 25th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival is
Calling for NAFF It Project Entries
It Project deadline: April 30
Work In Progress deadline: February 28


  

¡ã Producer JIN Pai Lunn and director CHENG Wei Hao of Marry My Dead Body, winner of the NAFF 2020 Bucheon Award
/ Poster for Marry My Dead Body


 
The 25th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN, Festival Director SHIN Chul) will be accepting submissions for this year’s NAFF (Network of Asian Fantastic Films) It Project from now until 24:00 KST on April 30 (Fri.). The submissions deadline for the Work In Progress program, which targets projects in the post-production stage, is February 28 (Sun.) at 24:00 KST. The selected projects will be posted on the BIFAN website on May 17 (Mon.), and the entrants will be notified separately.

The It Project is a program that discovers Asian genre film projects. Projects that are targeted include feature-length films from Korea and abroad that will not have completed the production and investment process by Thursday, July 8, 2021. Submitted projects must have a running time of 60 minutes or more for feature-length films, or 40 minutes or more for genre series projects. Treatments for series projects must include at least two episodes. 

In addition to organizing one-on-one business meetings that give filmmakers an opportunity to find investors, co-production partners, and distributors, the program presents cash awards and post-production awards to outstanding projects selected by a jury of international film industry professionals. Projects selected by the Work In Progress program must have their first screening at BIFAN, and selected projects receive digital intermediate (DI), sound mixing, and digital cinema package (DCP) mastering support.

 

¡ã Following the global trend of no-contact meetings, last year’s NAFF project business meetings were held
via the online business meeting platform b.square. Doing so allowed guests to not only request meetings with ease,
but also make scheduling changes and cancelations quickly and easily.
 

An It Project selection will also be entered into Cannes Film Festival’s Fantastic 7 program – a program that was launched in 2018 to promote genre films – to participate in a project pitching session. The Cannes’ Marché du Film launched Fantastic 7 for new genre film projects selected by BIFAN, Sitges – International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia, Cairo International Film Festival, Guadalajara International Film Festival, international Film Festivals & Awards – Macao, South by Southwest, and the Toronto International Film Festival. In previous years, BIFAN presented official IT Project selections KIM Sooyoung’s SUPERPOWER GIRL and KANG Minji’s ILLICIT to genre filmmakers from around the world. This year’s entry for Fantastic 7 will be chosen among one of the best It Project selections to date. An evaluation will be carried out to select a project, and the selection will be announced in May.

Submissions for It Project and Work In Progress are accepted at BIFAN’s online entry site (http://entry.bifan.kr/). More information regarding the programs can be found on BIFAN’s website (www.bifan.kr). Inquiries can be made to BIFAN’s B.I.G Team by phone (032-327-6313/ ext. 144) or e-mail (naff.itproject@bifan.kr). 

Since the launch of NAFF in 2008, BIFAN has operated the It Project market and the Fantastic Film School program over the years. A total of 57 films have gone on to be completed through their involvement with the It Project, and of these films, Abracadabra (2019), Motel Acacia (2019), and  Guilt by Design (2019) had their world premiere at BIFAN last year. BIFAN will begin accepting applications for Fantastic Film School on February 3 (Wed.). 

This year’s It Project will be held for six days from July 8th (Thu.) to the 13th (Tue.) during the 25th BIFAN (July 8-15).