News

The 75th annual Berlin International Film Festival took place between 13 and 23 February 2025. It was the first edition of the highly political festival in which the artistic director was Tricia Tuttle, American film journalist, festival programmer, and curator. Both the general festival program and its Asian part offered diversity this year – from documentaries, such as “The Sense of Violence” by Kim Mooyoung, independent movies such as “A Story about Fire” by Li Wenyu, to an action thriller such as “The Old Woman with the Knife” by Min Kyu-dong. However, despite the high-quality selection of Asian films, none of them turned out to be a masterpiece.

Among the most important awards films from the region netted, it is worth mentioning that the International Jury chaired by Todd Haynes awarded Huo Meng with the Silver Bear for Best Director for “Living the Land”. What’s more, “Seaside Serendipity” by Satoko Yokohama was awarded...

The Berlin International Film Festival has announced its full lineup for the 55th Forum section, the festival’s sidebar focusing on experimental and avant-garde cinema.

Section head Barbara Wurm said the 2025 selection aims to showcase contemporary cinema that “moves beyond the cult and the commercial” while functioning as a “seismograph of our time.”

The program’s exploration of time is highlighted by Stefan Hayn’s 2024 (2023), which juxtaposes political Berlin with private Bavaria, utilizing both film and painting as frames for observation. Cao Yiwen’s AI-driven What’s Next? poses a philosophical question about the future, while Su Hui-Yu’s The Trio Hall presents a pastiche featuring historical dictators engaged in theatrical performances.

Around half the films at this year’s Forum are documentaries, with highlights including Tatiana Fuentes Sadowski’s The Memory of Butterflies, a reconstruction of Indigenous slavery and colonial crimes; Lee Anne Schmitt’s Evidence, which explores...

49% Increase in Submissions from Last Year,

Record-High Numbers in Acf History!

14 Projects Showcasing Diversified Genres

Acf is a representative support program of Busan International Film Festival that discovers projects by talented Asian filmmakers and provides systematic support from script development to post-production, enabling them to complete their projects.

This year, a total of 774 projects were submitted to the various Acf support funds. An approximate 49% increase in total number from the previous year, each fund received a record-high number of submissions. This served as a confirmation of Acf's status and value in Korean and Asian film industry.

The 14 fund recipients, consisting of 3 Script Development Fund projects, 4 Post-Production Fund projects, and 7 Asian Network of Documentary (And) Fund projects, were chosen through a more precise and meticulous screening process than ever before, in line with the increased scale of submissions. This year's selections are garnering expectations with projects from Southeast Asia and South...

Busan Funding Revealed

The Busan festival’s Asian Cinema Fund has announced 14 film projects to which it will give financial support. Three projects at script stage, black comedy “Chronicles of a Confession,” by Prateek Vats (India), “To Kill a Mongolian Horse” by China’s Jiang Xioaxuan and Suraj Paudel “Where the Rivers Run South” (Nepal) each receive a KRW10 million cash grant and will be invited to the 2023 edition of the festival’s Asian Project Market.

Four projects receive post-production funding and are expected to make their world premieres at Busan this year. They are “Concerning My Daughter,” by Lee Mirang, and “Lay Off” by Park Hongjun, both from Korea. They are joined by “Solids by the Seashore,” from Thailand’s Patiparn Boontarig and “The Spark,” by Indian veteran Rajesh S. Jala.

Seven feature documentary projects each receive up to KRW20 million from the Asian Network of Documentary Fund. The...