Pandora’s Box

In Park Chan-wook’s film, “Stoker,” the main character, India, faces her father’s death on her 18th birthday. On the same day, she first meets her uncle Charlie. Afterwards, she kills Charlie and a sheriff she met on the road. Director Park explains this movie to be a sort of “coming-of-age” film. How can we understand the link between the murders and her growth? Literary critic Shin Hyung-chul said this film metaphorically defines growth as murder. Shin added that we symbolically kill people as we pass through several crises in our lives. As a viewer of this movie, I completely agree with his idea. Therefore, we can say that India grows after her birthday.

Not only India but the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) is suffering growing pains. The 21st BIFF will be held from Oct. 6 to 15 despite the internal conflict that it has had with the Busan government over the last several years. The conflict began with the documentary film “Diving Bell” which dealt with the Sewol ferry disaster. Busan Mayor Suh Byung-soo asked BIFF not to screen “Diving Bell,” but festival director Lee Yong-kwan showed the film during the festival, saying, “The decision to play certain movies is at the festival’s sole discretion.” Later, the Busan government fired Lee, a symbolic figure for the festival, and reduced the budget of the festival.

It also “unreasonably” charged the festival executive committee members, including Lee, with embezzlement and fraud, after which they were acquitted of the charges. Since then, numerous filmmakers have decided not to attend this year’s festival. This year’s BIFF is going to be held normally with revised festival regulations which are said to guarantee the autonomy and independence of the festival, and yet several filmmakers stick to their stance. The largest film fest in Asia is still in limbo.    

The revised regulations guarantee that more film professionals can participate on the board of the festival and that the festival may freely choose which movies it will screen. Some say the revised regulations still have room for the city government intervention. I am also not 100 percent satisfied with the regulations, although securing the freedom of expression is inspiring.

The biggest problem, however, is that Mayor Suh did not apologize for his mistake and also did not promise to try to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents. This is also the major reason why movie professionals have been boycotting the festival.

Regarding this issue, in a news conference in September, the current board chairman of BIFF, Kim Dong-ho, said, “I apologized instead for this situation when I took office because I thought an apology from the mayor was nearly impossible. I think the amended regulations will prevent a recurrence.” Under the imperfect regulations, nobody is sure whether this kind of situation can happen again. It is not Kim, but Mayor Suh who must say “I am sorry” and “I will never be sorry.”

Created in 1996, BIFF will have its 21st anniversary this October. The current festival director Kang Soo-yeon, a famous movie star, emphasized during a conference that this year’s event is going to be the first to seek a path to the next 20 years. As she said, the 21st BIFF is very important. Nonetheless, I would like to wait to deliver a congratulatory message for BIFF’s anniversary because I believe BIFF will grow much further after its 21st edition just like India did. When it really grows, I will give it my sincere congratulations. Still, the time of BIFF’s murder has not finished yet. 


Editor of Culture Section

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