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The 25th Busan International Film Festival Juries Announced

  • Monday, September 28, 2020, 11:54 am
  • ACROFAN=Seunghee Shin
  • seunghee.shin@acrofan.com
The 25th Busan International Film Festival announces the jury members for the BIFF Mecenat Award, Sonje Award, and Actor & Actress of the Year.

Juries Announced for Actor & Actress of the Year
Actor & Actress of the Year are awards that discover new talents who will lead the future of Korean cinema. The awards are given to a notable new actor and actress in independent Korean feature films invited to the Busan International Film Festival’s New Currents and Korean Cinema Today-Vision sections.

Choo Sang Mee and Jung Jin Young, who both act and direct, are this year’s jury members for Actor & Actress of the Year. Choo Sang Mee acts across genres in films, on television, and in theaters, and started directing with the short film Dressing Room (2010). Her feature-length directorial debut The Children Gone to Poland (2018) was screened in the Wide Angle section at the 23rd Busan International Film Festival.

Jung Jin Young is a seasoned actor who appeared in four megahit films that attracted more than 10 million viewers including King and the Clown (2005). He made his directorial debut with Me and Me (2020), which is invited to the Korean Cinema Today-Panorama section of this year’s Busan International Film Festival.

Actor & Actress of the Year awards have highlighted distinguished new actors since the inception in 2014: Choi Woo-shik in Set Me Free, Cho Soohyang in Wild Flowers, Lee Ju-won in Alone, Jang Sun in Communication & Lies, Lee Minji and Koo Kyohwan in Jane, Jeon Yeobeen in After My Death, and Park Jonghwan in Hit the Night, Lee Juyeong in Maggie, and Moon Choi in Our Body. Last year Kim Junhyung and Mun Hye-in received the Actor & Actress of the Year awards for their expressive emotional delivery in The Education.

Juries Announced for BIFF Mecenat Award and Sonje Award
BIFF Mecenat Award and Sonje Award are given to Korean and Asian documentary films and short films screening in the Wide Angle competition sections. BIFF Mecenat Award is given to two documentary films, one each from Korea and Asia; Sonje Award is given to two short films, one each from Korea and Asia. The director of the winning film is awarded 10,000,000 KRW.

The BIFF Mecenat Award jury members are Nick Deocampo, a Filipino documentary filmmaker and film historian; Park Inho, the president of the Busan Film Critics Association and a film critic; and Chalida Uabumrungjit, the director of the Thai Film Archive.

The Sonje Award jury members are Indonesian Ifa Isfansyah, the founder of Jogja Film Academy and Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival; Kim Yiseok, the president of film and culture cooperative Cine Folk and the director of the Cinema & Transmedia Institute at Dong-Eui University; and Kazakh Sharipa Urazbayeva, director of Mariam (2019), which was invited to various film festivals, including the Busan International Film Festival.



[Actor & Actress of the Year Jury Members Biographies]


CHOO Sang Mee
Actor, Director/Korea

Choo Sang Mee starred in numerous films such as The Contact (1997), Turning Gate (2002), and The Wonder Years (2007). She gained fame acting across genres in dramas and plays as well. Choo made her directorial debut with the short film Dressing Room (2010) which was selected for the Jeonju International Film Festival’s Competition section. Her following work A Woman Under the Influence (2013) was invited to the 18th Busan International Film Festival’s Korean Short Film Competition section. She has been expanding her filmography as a director, with her feature debut The Children Gone to Poland (2018) invited to the 23rd Busan International Film Festival’s Wide Angle section. Choo served on the executive committees at the 21st Seoul International Women’s Film Festival and the 12th DMZ International Documentary Film Festival.


JUNG Jin Young
Actor, Director/Korea

Jung Jin Young made his acting debut on stage in 1988 and gained recognition for his screen performance in A Promise (1998). He has since acted in various films, plays, and dramas. Jung is a frequent collaborator of director Lee Joon-ik, starring in five of Lee’s films including King and the Clown (2005). He starred in four films that attracted more than 10 million viewers: King and the Clown (2005), Miracle in Cell No. 7 (2013), Ode to my Father (2014), and A Taxi Driver (2017). Jung has delivered powerful performances in auteur films such as Grass (2018) and Ode to the Goose (2018) and socially conscious films such as Where the Truth Lies (2009) and Another Family (2014). Marking the 33rd year of his acting career, Jung made his directorial debut with Me and Me (2020).



[BIFF Mecenat Award Jury Members Biographies]


Nick DEOCAMPO
Director/Philippines

Nick Deocampo is a Filipino documentary filmmaker whose oeuvre spans from political films shot during the anti-dictatorship period of the 1980s to films that chronicle the history of Philippine cinema. Deocampo received his Master of Arts degree in Cinema Studies at New York University and is currently a professor at the University of the Philippines Film Institute. He served as a juror in festivals including those in Berlin, Tokyo, Oberhausen, Tampere, and Jakarta. Deocampo has also written award-winning books on the history of Philippine and Asian cinema.


PARK Inho
Film Critic/Korea

Park Inho is a film critic. She is the president of the Busan Film Critics Association and does commentaries on classic films at Busan Cinema Center’s Cinematheque Busan as well. She contributes to film magazines based in Busan: Critic b, published by the Busan Film Critics Association, and IndieCritique. She also writes for the Korea Film Archive and FILO, a bimonthly film magazine.


Chalida UABUMRUNGJIT
Director, Thai Film Archive/Thailand

Chalida Uabumrungjit studied film at Thammasat University in Thailand and film archiving at University of East Anglia in UK. Uabumrungjit is a founding member of Thai Short Film & Video Festival for which she has served as the festival director since 1997. She was also on the selection committee at Busan International Film Festival’s Asian Network of Documentary (AND) Fund and has been on the executive committee at the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) since 2013. Creating a number of experimental films and documentaries as well as serving as the director of Thai Film Archive, Uabumrungjit has been dynamically active in the film industry.



[Sonje Award Jury Members Biographies]


Ifa ISFANSYAH
Director, Producer/Indonesia

Ifa Isfansyah began his career in cinema by producing and directing several short films after graduating from the Television Department of the Indonesian Institute of Art Jogjakarta. In 2006, Isfansyah was selected by the Busan International Film Festival as an Asian Film Academy (AFA) fellow. His feature debut, Garuda Di Dadaku (2009), was met with great success; his second film, The Dancer (2011), was awarded the Best Director and Best Picture awards at the Indonesian Film Festival. Since then, he has directed seven feature films as well as established himself as a founding member of Fourcolours Films, an independent production company that supports local filmmakers. Isfansyah has shown his continuing support for the Indonesian film industry by establishing the Jogja Film Academy and Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival.


KIM Yiseok
Professor/Korea

Kim Yiseok is a professor in the Department of Film Studies at Dong-Eui University. He served as the president of the Busan Independent Film Association and Busan Film Critics Association. He is currently the president of Cine Folk, a film and culture cooperative, and the director of Cinema & Transmedia Institute (DCTI) at Dong-Eui University. Kim received his doctorate degree in Film and Audiovisual Studies at University of Paris 8. He translated two seminal works in cinema studies from French to Korean as well as writing two volumes on the subject.


Sharipa URAZBAYEVA
Director/Kazakhstan

Sharipa Urazbayeva graduated in film and TV production from T.K. Zhurgenov Kazakh National Academy of Arts and completed an international internship in the study of the technology of film at NOVA University of Lisbon in 2013. Her short films Mimi (2013), Source (2013), Ego (2014), The Potato Eaters (2016), and The Little One (2017) have screened at international film festivals including the Cannes Film Festival. Her feature debut, Mariam (2019), screened at Busan International Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival, and Toronto International Film Festival, in addition to winning the Golden Cyclo Award at the 26th Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinemas.