The 26th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), which will be held from October 6th to October 15th, is showcasing a special program for up-and-coming Chinese directors, ‘New Voices, Chinese Films.’

The 26th BIFF is opening a special program, ‘New Voices, Chinese Films,’ dedicated to emerging, talented Chinese directors who have been active participants in the film industry over the past decade. This special program highlights how a new generation of Chinese directors are differentiating themselves through their cinematic accomplishments and the messages they wish to convey.

China, which plays a prominent role in the world movie industry, is the third largest film producing country, following the United States and India. According to the Korean Film Council’s ‘2020 Chinese Film Industry Status and Trend Report,’ the Chinese film industry’s market size surpassed 60 billion CNY (approximately 10.6 trillion KRW) for the first time in 2018 and premiered 538 films in theaters in 2019. Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, which had a substantial effect on the movie industry, the Chinese film industry had an impressive annual growth rate of 20%. Despite such success, the Korean public has not been able to experience the scope, depth, and potential of Chinese films.

In light of this, the 26th BIFF is planning to open a special program that will focus on the works of up-and-coming, preeminent Chinese directors, who will continue the legacy of master directors such as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, Jia Zhangke, and many others, and will observe the new trends in Chinese cinema.

The films selected for ‘New Voices, Chinese Films,’ which are quite peripheral from the current Chinese film industry’s mainstream market, are the representative works of these directors, who have all received much acclaim from the international film industry after premiering at various prestigious film festivals throughout the world. More importantly, these films are worthy of attention because they portray, in their own unique cinematic perception and style, the lives and hardships of individuals who struggle to keep pace in the ever-changing, modern Chinese society.

Diao Yinan’s crime thriller, Black Coal, Thin Ice (2014), which won the Golden Bear award and won Liao Fan the Silver Bear for Best Actor award at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival; Bi Gan’s Kaili Blues (2015), which won him the Best Emerging Director Award at the 68th Locarno Film Festival; Li Rui Jun’s Walking Past the Future (2017), which was invited to the Un Certain Regard section at the 70th Cannes Film Festival; Gu Xiaogang’s Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountain (2019), which received high acclaim during Critics’ Week at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival; Zheng Lu Xinyuan’s The Cloud in Her Room (2020), which received the Tiger Award at the 49th International Film Festival Rotterdam; Song Fang’s The Calming (2020), which was invited to the 70th Berlin International Film Festival Forum and won the CICAE Art Cinema Award; and Wei Shujun’s Ripples of Life (2021), which was premiered at this year’s Cannes’ Critics’ Week; were all selected for this special program.

Many of the aspiring, preeminent directors invited to this year’s program have a deep, ongoing affiliation with BIFF. Both Diao Yinan and Li Rui Jun have continued to showcase their works at BIFF following their invitations to the New Currents section for their debut films, while Wei Shujun has showcased all three of his feature films at BIFF including his debut film, Duck Neck. Song Fang, who is an alumnus of BIFF’s very first Asian Film Academy (AFA), which aims to discover new film talents in Asia, also has a long-standing relationship with BIFF.

This year’s special program, ‘New Voices, Chinese Films,’ will be co-hosted by Pusan National University (PNU) Film Institute and BIFF, and will be open for ten days from October 6th to October 15th. In addition, there will be an online platform immediately following the movie premiere that will encourage interaction with the audience as well as make available the publication of a special program book that will be co-written by both domestic and international authors.