“Avatar” producer Jon Landau, Charles Rivkin, chairman of the Motion Picture Association, and the MPA’s Asia regional chief Belinda Liu, were on hand Wednesday in South Korea to tread the red carpet at theIt has been a struggle for Asian film festivals and rights markets to return to normal as conservative governments and reticent populations warily and belatedly embraced reduced quarantine periods, the end of mandatory mask-wearing and social distancing.
As the sun went down Wednesday, the floodlights came up and the spectacularly eccentric Busan Cinema Center lit up its fluorescent, mesh-like roof in a way that has not happened since October 2019. Seating was dense, allowing mass body heat to take some of the chill from the evening air. The in-person audiences gave warm and excitable receptions to the evening’s other guests, especially Kim Han-min , “Parasite” star Song Kang-ho and veteran director Im Kwon taek. There were roars for Lee Joon-ik, a successful film director who recently completed TV series “Yonder,” which appears in the Busan festival’s newish series sidebar.