Royston Tan Joins Awards Jury For The 26th Busan International Film Festival2 min read

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The 26th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), held from 6 – 15 October, has confirmed the juries for the Kim Jiseok, BIFF Mecenat, and Sonje Awards.

Local director Royston Tan will be heading the 26th BIFF Sonje Award Jury together with Asian cinema consultant and film festival organiser Bastian Meiresonne and filmmaker Yoon Danbi, who won four awards at BIFF 2019 with her feature debut, Moving On (2019). The Sonje Award sets out to discover the best Asian short films.

The BIFF Mecenat Award jury consists of director Wang Nanfu, known for her Academy Award nominated documentary Hooligan Sparrow (2016), director Kelvin Kyung Kun Park, a visual artist and a recipient of the BIFF Mecenat Award in 2018 with his film ARMY, and Mandy Marahimin, who endeavours to commercialize Indonesian and Southeast Asian documentaries. The BIFF Mecenat Award is dedicated to finding the best Asian documentaries.

Both awards will be selecting a Korean and an Asian documentary and short film among the films invited to the Wide Angle competition section. The winners are awarded KRW 10,000,000 each.

The Kim Jiseok Award was established in 2017 to commemorate the spirit of the late BIFF program director, Kim Jiseok, who was dedicated to supporting the growth of Asian cinema. Among the world premieres directed by renowned Asian directors, two films are selected and each director is awarded USD 10,000. This year, Iranian director Reza Mirkarimi has been appointed as the jury president. Gulnara Abikeyeva, professor and film critic from Kazakhstan, and Kim Haery, a film critic and the current editor-in-chief of the film magazine CINE21, will form the Kim Jiseok Award jury.

Get the latest updates on the upcoming festival from their Facebook page and their website.