Bucheon Film Festival 2023
By Christopher Weatherspoon
The 27th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN), Asia’s largest genre film festival, recently took place from June 29 to July 9, 2023. In case you aren’t familiar with this festival, Bucheon’s focus is thriller, horror, mystery and fantasy, with attendees and films from around the world.
This year's festival kicked off with the opening film “Beau Is Afraid”, the latest work by American horror director Ari Aster. Aster, who was in attendance himself, was among numerous local film industry celebrities, including veteran actors such as Choi Min-sik, Ahn Sung-ki, and Park Joong-hoon, as well as director Yoon Je-kyoon.
After being limited due to COVID, this year, the festival was back in full force and in person, just in time to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of its host city Bucheon. Located on the western edge of the capital city of Seoul, Bucheon is a densely populated suburb that celebrates fantasy and creativity. Festival goers that visited Bucheon City Hall, which each year serves as the central location for BIFAN, were greeted with whimsical decorations and a wide variety of activities celebrating the strange and fantastic films that screen at the festival each summer.
BIFAN usually takes place in July, which is also when Jangma – or Korea’s rainy season begins. Cinema fans that were willing to brave the heat, and occasional thunderstorm, were rewarded with a colorful range of entertaining genre cinema ranging from zombie comedy, such as PARK Jaein’s <2035>, to “metal noir”, which included Christophe Karabache’s hardcore thriller <Zaman Dark>. Over the course of the 11-day festival, 262 films from 51 countries were screened in addition to the festival’s special events which included Master classes, a VR content showcase, industry seminars, a project market, and a talent campus.
Christopher Murray’s fantasy drama <Sorcery> won BIFAN’s top prize, “Best of Bucheon” while KIM Sung Hwan’s <The Iron Mask> won “Best Korean Fantastic Film”. Meanwhile, Franklin Ritch’s AI-thriller <The Artifice Girl> took home the “Jury’s Choice” and “Audience Award”, while Italian director Giovanni Fumu’s <Abroad> won the “Korean Fantastic Audience” award as well as a “Korean Fantastic Actor” nod for JANG Seongbeom. [The full list of winners can be found on the BIFAN website.] After the awards ceremony, BIFAN 2023 officially came to an end with the screening of its closing film, SHIMUZU Takashi’s <Sana>.
Christopher Weatherspoon is a Korea-based producer with a focus on international co-productions whose work crosses the fields of television, film, K-pop, and animation working with Korean and US producers and production companies. Chris is a writer for media publications including Cine21, KOFIC’s KOBIZ, as well as Korean festivals including Jeonju International Film Festival and Bucheon Film Festival.
Chris earned an MFA in Film Producing with a specialty in international co-productions from Chung-Ang University, Korea's most renowned film school.