, from India’s Jaishankar Aryar, were the winners of the New Currents Awards at the close of an encouragingly busy, about a 30-something drifter, picked up multiple honours at the festival, also taking the NETPAC Award, Critic b Award and KBS Independent Film Award. Set in an Indian village,The Kim Jiseok Awards went to, from Iranian filmmaker Hadi Mohaghegh, which also played as BIFF’s opening film, andThe Winter Within, which was presented with the Busan Cinephile Award.
Held for the first time since 2019 with the full participation of international guests, BIFF and its accompanying industry platform,, drew a total of 7,542 guests from Korea and overseas. While screenings felt slightly less busy than pre-pandemic days, the festival still managed to record attendance of 161,145 with seat occupancy at 74%.
ACFM, as the first in-person market in Asia since 2019, felt like a return to pre-pandemic levels of foot traffic with meetings taking place around the sales booths, Asian Project Market, Busan Story Market, where rights in webtoons and online novels were being traded, and Platform Busan, a filmmakers’ networking event. The market signed up 72 sales booths and 2,465 badge holders from 49 countries.