Korean filmmakers threaten to boycott PiFan festival

Posted by Mack at 6:14pm.

Posted in Film News .

Keeping with the Chan-Wook Park theme, the director, along with 38 other filmmakers and actors, including Old Boy’s Choi Min-sik, announced that if the organization committee of the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan) finally agrees to drive the Executive Director Kim Hong-joon out of his post, they would no longer participate in the film festival.

The organizing committee of the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan), under pressure from the new mayor of Bucheon, has voted to remove popular festival director Kim Hong-joon from his position. The mayor’s office maintained that Kim’s other job as head of the School of Film, TV and Multimedia at the Korea National University of Arts would distract him from the demands of the festival post. Festival staff and the Korean film community in general have reacted with outrage, organizing protests and threatening to boycott next year’s festival. Many maintain that the mayor’s actions were motivated by personal grievances against Kim. In the meantime Jung Hong-taek, former president of the Korean Film Archive, was named to be Kim’s successor - KoreanFilm.org

PiFan is one of those festivals that you dream about going to. It would be a shame if thing progresses as planned by the organization committee and all this talent didn’t offer their works for the festival next year.

We linked to KoreanFilm.org’s 2004 PiFan retrspective back in the Fall. Read it here to get an idea why this festival is so cool.