Despite this surprise, PIFF's strong Asian showcase attracted attention from film professionals and international press. Out of the 33 films selected, 11 films are Asian premieres and five are world premieres, an indication that more and more Asian films are choosing Busan as the first stop in their search for international markets or distributors. "PIFF has become the center for showcasing Asian films," said festival host Kim.
He is not alone in believing this. Taiwanese film critics such as Jane Yu (
"PIFF may have taken over the role of the Hong Kong Film Festival in terms of showing Asian films, because PPP serves the important function of drawing distributors from the US or Europe who want to check out new products from Asia," said Yu, organizer of Taiwan's Women Make Waves film festival.
It takes more than energy and passion to organize an international film festival such as PIFF. It also needs money and effective allocation of facilities and manpower. PIFF has a budget of around US$6 million, seven times that of Taiwan's Golden Horse Film Festival.
The PIFF Square in Nam-po Dong has two big cinemas with nearly 1,000 seats between them. It is located at the center of Busan's old shopping district and fish market, an area rather like Taipei's Hsimenting. A warm welcome was provided by a host of volunteers. PIFF mobilized around 300 volunteers from local colleges to work in ticketing, reception and press and transportation coordination.
Facilities for the press where also impressive, with the festival's press center providing wireless Internet connection -- a great opportunity for Korea to show off its hi-tech development as well.
The only fly in the ointment is the fact that English is not widely used and this led to occasional communication errors. There was also criticism of the one-hour trip between Nam-po Dong and the Haeundae beach community, another PIFF location. Next year all festival events will move to Haeundae.
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