SEOUL, April 6 — This year’s Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF), South Korea’s largest showcase of indie and art house films, will open in a hybrid format amid the pandemic later this month, organisers said today.
The 22nd edition of JIFF will kick off its 10-day run on April 29 under the slogan of Film Goes On, combining in-theatre and online screenings, accoring to report by Yonhap news agency.
A total of 186 films from 48 countries, 118 features and 68 shorts, will hit four venue theatres in the city of Jeonju, some 200 kilometers south of Seoul, with 141 projects of them to be also available on the local streaming platform Wavve, it added.
Father, directed by Serbian filmmaker Srdan Golubovic, will open the festival. It is a story about a Serbian worker and father of two children who is desperate to survive poverty after losing the kids to the authorities.
JIFF will be closed with French illustrator Aurel’s animated film Josep, portraying Spanish illustrator Josep Bartoli, who fights against Franco’s regime after the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s. Josep was selected for the official lineup of the Cannes Film Festival last year.
Ten films are chosen for the international competition section, including All Light, Everywhere by Theo Anthony and Broken Keys by Jimmy Keyrouz.
Yonhap’s report added that another 10 Korean-made movies like Influenza by Hwang Jun-ha and “First Child” by Hur Jung-jae will compete in the separate competition category, while 25 films were listed in the Korean short film section.
Last year, the 21st JIFF took place behind closed doors after a month delay due to Covid-19. — Bernama
