Busan Competition Titles Include Films By Brillante Mendoza, Rima Das & Tom Lin

Sara Merican
·2 min read

Films by veteran Asian filmmakers Brillante Mendoza, Rima Das and Tom Lin have been selected for the Busan International Film Festival’s Jiseok competition section.

Besides announcing the lineup of eight films in the Jiseok competition for seasoned filmmakers, the festival also unveiled its selection of 10 films for the New Currents competition, which showcases first and second features by Asian filmmakers.

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Featuring eight films this year, including two Korean titles, the Jiseok competition is named after the late Kim Jiseok, a veteran programmer who was also one of the festival’s co-founders.

The section includes Motherland by Filipino director Brillante Mendoza, Deal at the Border by Kyrgyzstani director Dastan Zhapar Ryskeldi, Yen and Ai-Lee by Taiwanese filmmaker Tom Lin as well as Village Rockstars 2 by Indian director Rima Das. Das made the first Village Rockstars film in 2017 and Bulbul Can Sing in 2018.

Korean titles include I Am Love by Baek Seungbin and So It Goes, the third feature from Lee Haram.

Two films from Japan have also been selected: Aimitagai by Kusano Shogo and Traveling Alone by Ishibashi Yuho.

The New Currents competition features 10 films, including two Korean films.

Park Ri-woong’s second feature The Land of Morning Calm and Choi Jongyong’s debut feature Waterdrop will premiere in the section. Park’s film traces a young fisherman’s disappearance and an old captain mysteriously involved in the case, while Waterdrop portrays the survival journey of a thirteen-year-old child left alone in the world.

The competition selection also includes Chinese film As the River Goes By by Charles Hu, which received the festival’s post-production grant under the Asian Cinema Fund this year, as well as Kazakhstan’s Abel by Elzak Eskendir, which was part of the festival’s Asian Project Market in 2020.

Other titles are Montages of a Modern Motherhood by Hong Kong’s Oliver Siu Kuen Chan, The Height of the Coconut Trees by China’s Du Jie, Kaneko’s Commissary by Japan’s Furukawa Go, For Rana by Iran’s Iman Yazdi, MA – Cry of Silence by Myanmar’s The Maw Naing and Tale of the Land by Indonesia’s Loeloe Hendra Komara.

Among these films, two will be nominated for the New Currents Award.

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