PIFF to Support Independent Works

By Lee Hyo-won
Staff Reporter

The Pusan (Busan) International Film Festival (PIFF) has launched the Asia Cinema Fund, a program to support independent film projects, the festival's organizing committee announced Tuesday at a Seoul hotel. PIFF, Korea's most celebrated cinematic event, will hold its 12th meeting between Oct. 4-12 in the southern port city.

The Asia Cinema Fund, with a balance of 800 million won, is an expansion of the festival's existing program, the Asia Documentary Network (AND). The program will finance 27 films under three categories: script and project development and post-production of full-length independent films, and the making of documentary works, a continuation of AND. Each section is split geographically, for Korean projects and Asian projects. The Association of Korean Independent Film & Video will help fund the Korean documentary projects.

"Asian Cinema Fund was created with a mission to broaden and deepen PIFF's support for Asian Cinema", said PIFF Festival Director Kim Dong-ho during the press conference. "I anticipate the Fund to be the pivotal entity for the Asian film industry network".

"Making independent films in Thailand is a lonely endeavor, but because of the fund I am no longer lonely, and am thankful that I am no longer by myself. I feel that PIFF's leadership is very big", said director Aditya Asarat, who won support for his movie "Wonderful Town".

Other works to receive funding for script and project development include "Addicted to Love" by Liu Hao (China), "Serbis" by Brillante Mendoza (the Philippines), "Virgin Goat" by Murali Nair (India) and "Waiting for Snow in Kyantan" by Tan Chui Mui (Maylaysia).

Asia Cinema Fund projects that received aid for post-production, Afghanistani filmmaker Siddiq Barmak's "Opium War", Ahn Seul-gi's "My Song Is... " and Kim Dong-hyun-VI's "Hello, Stranger", will be screened during the October festival.

For more information about the Pusan International Film Festival, visit http://www.piff.org.

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