Welcome to the Ocean of Cinema

From Busan ’26, Korean critic ROH Chul-Hwan examines both the business aspects of the festival and the success of expanding its “Vision” section into two sections: one devoted to South Korean cinema, the other expanding its realm to include all of Asia.

Held over ten days from October 6 to 15, the 31st Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) reaffirmed its status as a festival capable of reading both the present and the future of Asian cinema. Screenings drew 200,043 admissions, the festival’s highest figure since 2015. When programmed events and other related activities are included, total participation reached 277,027. At a time when the Korean film industry is experiencing an extended period of uncertainty, Busan offered more than a showcase of films: it suggested that festivals can still create spaces where artistic practice, public debate, and industrial renewal meet.

BIFF also entered a new phase in its international development. Its new “A-list” status, together with the Academy’s recognition of the Busan Award for Best Film as an Oscar- qualifying award, gave the competition a new practical significance. This year, the honor went to Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi’s Midday Meal, which became eligible for submission in the Academy Awards’ Best International Feature Film category.

A Vision for New Cinema

One of the festival’s most meaningful changes was the expansion of the Vision section. Previously centered largely on Korean independent cinema, the section was divided for the first time last year into Vision–Korea and Vision–Asia. This year, the significance of that expansion became fully apparent as the two strands brought together 24 films—12 from Korea and 12 from across Asia. Their combined program offered a richer and more balanced portrait of the diverse voices, histories, and creative possibilities shaping independent cinema across the region.

Sakhya Byamba’s Mongolian-German co-production Zogsool was the most prominent discovery in Vision–Asia. It received the FIPRESCI Award, the NETPAC Award, the Hylife Vision Award, and the Vision of Jiseok Award. Byamba, who previously won BIFF’s New Currents Award for Remote Control in 2013, sets the film around an isolated gas station whose rigid order is disturbed by the arrival of a stranger. The film’s satirical treatment of control, bureaucracy, and social tension is grounded in a recognizably local situation, yet its underlying humor and unease travel easily across borders. Zogsool is powerful precisely because it does not sacrifice its cultural specificity in pursuit of universal appeal.

Vision–Korea, meanwhile, revealed the continuing vitality of Korean independent cinema. Jeong Jihye’s Full Moon won the CGV Award, the K-MOVIE Award, and the Songwon Vision Audience Award – Korea. Park Songyeol’s Beyond Love’s Horizon received both the KBS Independent Film Award and the Critic b Award. These films exist at a different level from the Korean works celebrated as “ten-million-admission” hits or global OTT phenomena. Their scale may be smaller, but their attention to social reality is no less ambitious. They explore hidden family wounds, unstable homes, and the emotional pressures that shape ordinary lives.

The achievement of the Vision section lay not only in discovering new directors, but also in creating a context in which their films could be seen, discussed, and supported. Across the selection, questions of labor, housing, religion, class, gender, family, and community emerged not as abstract themes but as lived experiences. The films proved that cinema could make different societies legible to one another without reducing their differences.

Busan and the Future of Asian Cinema

BIFF’s other major dimension was its industrial impact. The 21st Asian Contents & Film Market, held at BEXCO from October 10 to 13, brought together 339 exhibiting companies and institutions from 32 countries and territories and recorded 30,484 visitors. These figures confirmed ACFM’s growing importance as a major business platform for Asian content. In a difficult global market, ACFM is also attempting to redefine what a film market can be. It connects film sales with project development, investment with co-production, and established companies with emerging filmmakers. Its theme, “Core and Expansion,” captured this dual ambition: to preserve cinema’s essential values while extending its industrial and technological possibilities.

Busan’s 31st festival left a lasting impression—not simply as a celebration of cinema, but as an invitation to explore its many possibilities. That expanded role, however, has also brought the question of financial sustainability to the fore. Securing stable public funding remains one of BIFF’s most serious concerns. As the festival’s international standing and responsibilities continue to grow, fluctuating public support and increasing reliance on private sponsorship make long-term planning difficult. BIFF’s future would depend on whether it can protect its artistic vision while building a reliable financial foundation for sustained growth.

Busan posed a question to us: “Do you believe in the power of cinema?” Perhaps its answer lies in the network it has built—a network in which different languages, histories, and production conditions meet, united by a shared faith in cinema and sustained by cinephiles.

ROH Chul-Hwan

© FIPRESCI 2026