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The Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) has announced that a total of 31 projects will participate in this year’s edition of its Asian Cinema Fund (ACF), which is composed of a variety of support programs dedicated to nurturing Asian independent film projects in different stages of production, from script writing to post-production. This year’s cohort consists of 12 Korean projects and 19 from elsewhere in Asia. A total of 396 projects were submitted for consideration.

 

The largest section within ACF, the Asian Network of Documentary (AND) Fund will host 17 projects this year, six of which are from Korea. Among the non-Korean projects participating are Tamara STEPANYAN’s (Lebanon) <Embers>, <Shahrzaad’s Tale> by Shahin PARHAMI (Iran, Canada) and <Stone Town> by GUO Jing and KE Dingding (China). A trio of projects focusing on the topic of boundary areas will also receive funds co-sponsored by the DMZ Korean International Documentary Festival: <Footprints in the desert> (India), <We State, A Forsaken People> (China, Myanmar), and <Fluid Boundaries> (South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia).

 

AND’s Korean selections include: <People Passing By> by KIM Kyungman, <Shall We Dance?> by KIM Mire, <Watching, The Labor Movement!> by BlueFly and KIM Junho, <Tour of Duty> from KIM Dong-ryung and PARK Kyoung-tae, <Wellang Threi> by KIM Tae-il, and PARK Bae-il’s <Life Built on Sand>.

 

ACF’s Script Development Fund will sponsor a total of eight projects, three of which are from Korea. Among the selections from greater Asia are <30 Days with Me> by Babak AMINI (Iran), which also participated in the Cannes Film Festival’s La Cinéfondation program, and <Lian-Qing, a Burmese Girl> from Midi Z (Myanmar), whose <Return to Burma> was invited to the New Currents section of last year’s BIFF. Korean projects included are <Strange Attractor> by SON Inan, <New Girl of My Ex> by LEE Jee haeng and <The Only Fault> from LEE Hyunju.

 

ACF’s Post-production Fund will host six films this year, half of which are Korean. Mohsen MAKHMALBAF, who was honored as Asian Filmmaker of the Year at the 8th BIFF, will bring <The Gardener>, and Mostofa Sarwar FAROOKI’s <Television>, which was selected for BIFF’s 2010 Asian Project Market (APM) and was a recipient of the 2010 ACF Script Development Fund, will also partcipate. FUNAHASHI Atsushi’s “Under the Cherry Trees in Full Bloom” will also receive funding this year.  Korean projects include <Jiseul> by O MUEL, <The Sunshine Boys> by KIM Tae Gon and <Mai Ratima> from well-known Korean actor/director YOO Ji-Tae.

 

ACF’s Post-production Fund is a coalition with Korean Film Council (KOFIC) and made possible with sponsorship by a variety of Korean film-related businesses, universities, and both national and local film commissions and media content agencies.

 

The 17th Busan International Film Festival will be held from Thursday, October 4, 2012 to Saturday, October 13, 2012.