Three decades later, the Busan International Film Festival is more significant than ever

As is the case with other major festivals, South Korea’s Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) is actually about 12 festivals in a hanbok. At this year’s 30th anniversary event, for example, one attendee could have spent their entire festival enjoying auteur-led black comedies, including Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice, Byun Sung-hyun’s Good News, and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia (an English-language remake of 2003 Korean film Save the Green Planet!). Another attendee could have leaned into a K-pop theme, watching Seventeen member Jun’s supporting turn in Chinese blockbuster The Shadow’s Edge, belting out the lyrics to “Golden” at South Korea’s first KPop Demon Hunters singalong screening, or catching a surprise mini-concert following the international premiere of docu-film The Rose: Come Back to Me.

The fact that both of these experiences are contained in one film festival speaks to the scope of BIFF, which ran from Sept. 17-26 and has always aimed to be as accessible to the public as it is to industry professionals. This year, almost 176,000 people watched 328 movies over the course of the festival, including 241 officially invited works from 64 countries. Ninety of the films were celebrating their world premiere. The artistic weight and sheer starpower in the preceding paragraph also speak to the BIFF’s significance as a major cultural event—one that is generally recognized as the most prominent film festival in Asia. Thirty years after its inception, it’s past time the Western world saw BIFF as the cultural bellwether it has long been, on par with the so-called “Big Five” festivals, all coincidentally located in the Western world (Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Sundance, and Toronto). 

BIFF: A very brief history

BIFF launched in 1996, roughly a decade after South Korea’s pro-democracy movement successfully overthrew the country’s authoritarian government, and a year before the Asian financial crisis would threaten South Korea’s hard-won economic successes. While the country’s national cinema had a slow start compared to other countries, due to factors like the Japanese occupation, the Korean War, and censorship policies adopted by subsequent military governments, the mid-90s ushered in a new generation of South Korean film auteurs, including the previously mentioned Park, Hong Sang-hoo, Lee Chang-dong, Bong Joon-ho, and Yim Soon-rye. 

Notably, BIFF was launched, not in the capital city of Seoul, where roughly half of the country’s population lives today, but in the second-most populous city of Busan. Journalist Kim Eun-hyoung notes that this was due to the number of film professionals based in Busan, including Kyungsung University film professor Lee Yong-kwan, Busan Arts College professor Kim Ji-seok, and film critic Jeon Yang-jun. In that first year, 169 films from 31 countries were screened.

BIFF was formed as a festival to champion Asian film and filmmakers, especially filmmakers at the start of their careers. BIFF has recognized the early works of aforementioned South Korean auteurs like Park, Bong, and Yim, and served as a welcoming space for other celebrated Asian directors, including Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda, China’s Jia Zhangke and Iran’s Jafar Panahi. Panahi, who was in attendance at BIFF’s inaugural fest in 1996, brought his Palme D’or winner It Was Just an Accident to this year’s celebration of Asian cinema.

This year’s BIFF

While BIFF has always included prize sections, such as “New Currents,” which recognizes an Asian filmmaker’s first or second feature film, 2025 marked the first time BIFF held an official competition. Fourteen Asian films competed in the Busan Awards for five primary awards: Grand Prize, Best Director, Special Jury Prize, Best Actor/Actress, and Artistic Contribution. The result? An attempt to draw more global attention to BIFF and to Asian film, an aspiration to create an international film festival competition that doesn’t see Asian cinema as an exception but rather the primary lens. 

The inaugural jury was composed entirely of Asian filmmakers and actors, including South Korean director Na Hong-jin (The Wailing), legendary Hong Kong actor Tony Leung (In the Mood For Love), Indian director and actor Nandita Das (Fire), Iranian director Marziyeh Meshkiny (Stray Dogs), Korean American director Kogonada (A Big Bold Beautiful Journey), Indonesian producer Yulia Evina Bhara (The Fox King), and South Korean actress Han Hyo-joo (Moving).

This year, the Grand Prize was awarded to Korean Chinese filmmaker Zhang Lu’s Gloaming in Luomo, an introspective film about a woman who travels to a rural town looking for answers about her missing boyfriend. As with other celebrated filmmakers who were in attendance at this year’s BIFF, it wasn’t Zhang’s first time at the festival. It wasn’t even his first time winning at the festival. His first film, Grain in Ear, was awarded the “New Currents” prize in 2005. 

“I stand here again after 20 years,” Zhang said, as he accepted the award during BIFF’s closing ceremony, to a standing ovation at the Busan Cinema Center’s massive outdoor stage. “I hope to be on this stage when BIFF celebrates its 100th anniversary.”