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PIFF Center to help transform Busan into hub for film industry

Local politicians and VIP visitors from home and abroad to the Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) gathered on Friday (Oct. 7) to commemorate the official launch of the project to build a film center for the festival in Centum City, Busan.

The PIFF organizing committee invited them to the ceremony held in a huge vacant lot where the PIFF Center will be constructed by 2008 and explained the schedule to develop the project.

At the ceremony, Busan mayor and chairman of the festival Hur Nam-sik announced the plan to construct the multiplex theater building and develop the city as a hub for all the film and visual industry.

"It has long been a dream for all of us Busan citizens, and people from film industry, to have PIFF Center. The center will be equipped with aesthetic and practical values", Hur said. "Besides, other film industry related centers will be also constructed here as part of the project called 'Cine Port Busan' to transform the city into a mecca in Asia for the film industry where all the film infrastructures are available".

The ceremony was also attended by some 300 guests including such dignitaries as Chung Dong-chea, minister of culture and tourism; Yoon Won-ho, lawmaker of the ruling Uri Party; and An Cheong-sook, chairwoman of the Korean Film Council, as well as guests from abroad such as Thierry Fremaux, artistic director of the Cannes Film Festival.

With the construction budget of about 46.8 billion won supported by the local Busan and central governments, the six story PIFF Center will be built on a 9,700-pyong lot, which will house six theaters of different sizes from 200 to 1,200 seats, as well as a film museum, exhibition hall and other related offices.

Proposed structures by seven renowned international architects have been already submitted to the organizing committee of the festival and now are competing to win the project.

The participating architects and groups are Bernard Tschumi from Switzerland, Coop Himmelblau from Australia, Erick van Egeraat from Netherlands, Heikkinen-Komonen & Markku-Komonen from Finland, MVRDV from Netherlands, Steven Holl from the United States and TEN Arquitectos from Mexico, who had a presentation for their architecture on Oct. 6 at the Haeundae Grand Hotel.

Their works will be on display at the PIFF Pavilion Zone, exhibition complexes set up on the Haeundae beach through Oct. 14, the last day of the festival, and the winner chosen by citizens and five juries will be announced at the closing ceremony of the film festival.

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