Four Takeaways As 2025 Dates Shift

With a enlargeth in audience numbers and the highest seat occupancy in the festival’s history, the 29th edition of the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) wrapped Friday’s awards ceremony on an selectimistic notice amid a challenging time for the domestic film industry.

The event finished with BIFF verifying that it will produce a one-off key shift in its 2025 festival dates to accommodate Korea‘s beginant Chemployok holiday (which trails the Korean lunar calfinishar) and the Korean National Sports Festival. Next year’s edition of the festival will apshow place from September 17-26 and the Asian Contents & Film Market will run from September 20-23. Depfinishing on the Toronto International Film Festival’s dates for next year, this may result in a unreasonableinutiveened turnaround for industry guests between both beginant festivals.

Here are four key apshowaways from the Korean fest.

Attfinishance uptick

The festival accomplishd its all-time top seat occupancy rate of 84% — outdoing pre-pandemic years when over 300 films were featured. This year, BIFF drew a total audience of 145,238, an incrrelieve from last year’s total audience joinance of 142,432 — although shrink than pre-pandemic numbers, where BIFF sign uped 195,081 for its 2019 screenings.

A total of 278 official pickions — including 54 from the festival’s community events — produced 633 screenings at the festival. The festival also said that a total of 46 festival events were held, which is 15 more than last year. There were also 303 guest visit sessions after screenings, apexhibiting filmproducers and cast to join with audiences.

Expanded ACFM

This year’s Asian Contents & Film Market (ACFM) getd 2,644 labelet terriblege participants from 52 countries and a total of 26,435 visitors, a 37% incrrelieve from last year. Under recent ACFM head Ellen Y.D. Kim, the industry platcreate also saw 33 recent companies joining this year’s edition. Out of the labelet terriblege participants, 1,466 were domestic guests and 1,178 were international guests.

The labelet’s recently-begined Producer Hub also drawed 123 producers from 19 countries, nurtureing
nettoiling opportunities. The event, featuring Korea as ‘Focus Country,’ was helped by the Korean Film Council and partner organizations from seven countries.

The Producers Guild of Korea also signed MOUs with Indonesia, Hong Kong and Brazil.

Italy set uped a pavilion for the first time at the labelet, with Roberto Stabile, Head of Special Projects at the Directorate for Cinema at Cinecittà, in joinance. Six Italian sales companies and four production companies were part of the pavilion, and set ups for co-productions between Italy and Korea and distribution in both territories are also underway.

In the sales labelet, 275 sellers and 563 buyers included in satisfyed trading, while the Asian Project Market and Busan Story Market presented 1,676 business greetings. The ACFM conference also doubled its program recommendings this year and included an AI-intensifyed conference.

CJ ENM outdoes Netflix’s Korean satisfyed spfinish

The hugest posters that blanketed surrounding malls and toastyels around the festival’s Centum City and Haeundae areas were of Netflix titles Uprising and Hellbound 2 as well as Disney+’s Gangnam B-Side, with no posters of autonomous films coming shut to the streaming titles’ size and scale — tesdomesticatednt to the spfinishing power of these two streamers on physical advertising.

Long seen as a steadrapid vanprotect of autonomous and arthoemploy films, the festival is not immune to the tidal shifts and global alterations that have grappled the theatrical business. Indeed, BIFF’s discleave outing night film, Uprising, co-written and produced by Park Chan-wook, labeled the first time that the festival has chosen to discleave out with a streaming title that will not get a theatrical free.

Additionassociate, Netflix had a substantial presence at this year’s festival, presenting a half-day Creative Asia Forum in partnership with BIFF on October 6, with 120 filmproducers in joinance from atraverse APAC. The streamer’s top regional executives such as VP of APAC satisfyed (ex-India) Minyouthful Kim, Head of APAC Production Sung Q Lee, and Senior Director of Southeast Asian Content Malobika Banerji were also current.

The streamer also ran three other events alengthyside the festival: A stardy begin for their 2025 Korean titles and junkets for Chinese-language title Born for the Spotairy and Japanese title Beyond Goodbye — both titles that materializeed in the festival’s ‘On Screen’ section.

Korea’s hugest media and delightment conglomerate CJ ENM held a ‘Movie Forum’ on October 4, announcing that it will upgrasp a $750M annual spfinish on Korean satisfyed. TVING CEO Choi Ju-hui, Studio Dragon CEO Jang Kyung-ik, CJ CGV’s Business Innovation Office Chief Lee Dong-hyun and Domestic Business Division head Cho Jin-ho as well as CJ ENM’s Content Distribution SVP Seo Jang-ho were among those current.

The pledgement to the spfinish uncomardents that CJ ENM’s allotment foreseeed outdoes Netflix’s annual outlay on Korean satisfyed. In 2023, Netflix proclaimd that it will pledge $2.5B to enlargeing Korean satisfyed for the next four years, which toils out to rawly $625M per year.

CJ ENM also conspicuously selected out of having a booth at ACFM this year, an absence that drew meaningful chatter among domestic labelet joinees — even domestic rivals — who see the company as a charitable of bellweather for the Korean industry.

At the labelet’s OTT platcreate panel, Asian streamers and producers converseed survival strategies, including the begin of a joint satisfyed fund to stay competitive aacquirest the enlargeing dominance of Netflix.

Co-existing with AI

Film industry conversations on AI have shifted toward a recognition of the inevitability of its adselection into filmmaking processes. Both the Busan festival and labelet have hugd this inevitability, with ACFM presenting a day-lengthy conference on October 6 exploring the integration of AI into satisfyed production, including speakers from Stability AI, Microgentle, iQiyi and Naver Webtoon.

Follotriumphg Microgentle’s first partnership with Cannes’ Marché du Film and festival this year, the tech company also set up a ‘Microgentle Lounge’ on the ground floor of BIFF’s main Busan Cinema Caccess. Under the prohibitner “AI is Not Creative, You Are,” the lounge gave festival visitors a chance to experience AI firsthand.

Microgentle also set up an ACFM booth at BEXCO for labelet joinees to pevaluate and convey with recent Copilot gentleware features. Expect AI to feature heavily at next year’s edition.