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The red carpet at last year’s Busan International Film Festival. Photo: AFP

South Korean film festival organisers pledge freedom and independence after boycott threat

South Korea

The South Korean head of Asia’s top film festival vowed on Thursday to adopt new rules on artistic freedom in a bid to stave off a threatened boycott by local moviemakers.

The annual Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) has been embroiled in a bitter row with the municipal government of the host port city since the screening in 2014 of a controversial documentary about the Sewol ferry disaster.

Our long-held principle over independence and autonomy will be protected
Kim Dong-ho, chairman, Busan International Film Festival

A flurry of official probes targeting the organising committee and an unprecedented cut in state funding last year was taken as an attack on the festival’s independence and triggered a boycott threat by an amalgam of Korean filmmakers’ associations.

In an effort to smooth things over, the Busan city government – a major BIFF sponsor – appointed the well-respected former founding director of the festival, Kim Dong-ho, as the new chairman of the organising committee.

At a press conference in Seoul on Thursday, Kim vowed to reform the rules of the festival, which opens in October, so as to ensure its artistic and political freedom. He also urged an end to the boycott threat.

“I will make sure that no one meddles with the movie selection – the most fundamental aspect of the festival – apart from programmers and the director,” he told reporters.

“Our long-held principle over independence and autonomy will be protected. I will also make sure that movie selection for this year’s festival runs smoothly,” he said.

Kim, 78, was brought in as chairman to replace Busan city mayor Suh Byung-soo, who was at the centre of the fight over the documentary Diving Bell in 2014.

The film criticised the South Korea government’s handling of the sinking of the Sewol ferry in April 2014 that killed more than 300 people, mostly schoolchildren.

Suh said it was “too political” to be premiered at the BIFF, although the screening eventually went ahead.

After that, state funding for the 2015 BIFF was nearly halved and the then-festival director Lee Yong-kwan became the target of a series of probes by state auditors. Lee was eventually forced to step down in February after Suh refused to renew his contract.

The measures prompted hundreds of local directors, actors and producers to stage street rallies in protest at what they described as a state attempt to “tame” critics including artists.

More than 100 prominent cineastes including the directors of the Cannes, Berlin and Venice film festivals also issued an open letter in February denouncing “political pressure” on the BIFF programmers.

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