Taiwan takes top prize at South Korean film festival

First-time director Lee Kang-sheng (李康生) won the Eighth Pusan International Film Festival's (PIFF) prestigious New Current Award Friday for his film The Missing (不見). Lee shared the award and prize money with Alireza Amini from Iran, who directed the film Tiny Snow Flakes. The US$10,000 award is given to first or second-time directors and is the only competition section of the festival.

The Missing is a film about a chaotic day in which people's family members go missing. Lee was one of the clear favorites among South Korean movie fans. Lee's and Amini's films were selected for the freshness of their images, emotional depth and strong human orientation. Special mention was also given to an Iran film Osama by Sedigh Barmak.

"I'm really happy that my first film received such an honor. In the future I will make better films, whether I'm an actor or a director," Lee said after receiving the award.

The film festival is one of the most important in Asia, and its three-day Pusan Promotion Plan (PPP) is the highlight for the region's film industry. One thousand participants, including representatives from film companies, foreign guests and international journalists gathered this year at the beach resort of Haeundae in Busan, for 700 official meetings and non-stop parties hosted by South Korean film companies that turn the harbor city into one big carnival.

For many filmmakers in Asia, the PPP is the stepping stone to fulfill their movie dreams. Fruit Chan (陳果) from Hong Kong found the money for post-production for his Golden Horse winning Little Cheung (細路祥). Lou Ye (婁燁) from China found investors for his later acclaimed Suzhou River. Taiwanese filmmakers such as Lin Cheng-sheng (林正盛) and Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢) both benefited from previous PPPs.

For Taiwan's first-time film producer Phoebe Huang, the festival was a hectic, yet fruitful trip. She brought 25kg of leaflets, press books and posters for a film project to be directed by Taiwanese director Cheng Wen-tang (鄭文堂). At the promotion event, dubbed a "project market" for filmmakers to find investors or co-producers for their new projects, she spent eight hours per day, talking non-stop, promoting her project with potential business partners. In all she has talked to more than 20 film companies interested in the project, with the working title Deep Ocean.

"I'm happy to have talked to representatives from Columbia Asia and Miramax, so I've reached my goal for this trip," Huang said.

If it was not for the PPP, it would be almost impossible for a rookie producer to promote a Taiwanese project to so many film companies in Asia.

"These [the 700 meetings] do not including the informal meetings. Film producers and financiers went on to further discuss their projects at hotel lobbies, coffee shops or restaurants after their official meetings," said Taesung Jeong, deputy director of PPP.

Another Taiwanese producer Patrick Mao Huang, whose A Letter From an Unknown Woman was also chosen among the 18 PPP projects, was pleased with his trip as well. He said he'd talked to more than 30 film companies including Columbia Asia, Warner Bros and United Artists. The film, to be directed by Stanley Kwan (關錦鵬), is a US$5 million budget love story, set in Shanghai in the 1930s. Zhang Ziyi (章子怡) is in discussion to star in the movie, which partly explains the film's high budget.