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July 18, 2005

THERE'S TWO KINDS OF FILM FESTIVAL: GOOD AND CRAPPY

There's two kinds of film festivals: the kind that actually sell tickets to audiences and the kind that exist to provide hobnobbing intersections for local politicians, sponsors and film community riff raff. After the PUCHON INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL head, Kim Hong-joon, was fired he formed the REAL FANTASTIC FILM FESTIVAL. The two fests are running head-to-head and many people seem to feel that the new REAFAN is the real thing, while PIFAN is nothing more than a political event.

Read about the dueling opening weekends where it's claimed that only 70 of 900 PIFAN seats on the opening night were actually sold to the public (the rest were comps to mucketymucks) and that the cheering crowds who surrounded PIFAN's red carpet were mostly festival volunteers.

July 18, 2005 at 12:24 PM in News | Permalink

Comments

Uh, judging from Park Soo-mee's story, I'm guessing someone screwed up the math there. In a 900 seat auditorium, 240, 50 and 30 were reserved for various groups... That leaves a lot more than 70. 700?

Posted by: Mark | Jul 20, 2005 3:33:37 AM

Puchon IFFF audiences were drastically down because university professors organised a boycott of the event in support of fellow academic, Kim Hong-joon. So much for encouraging students - the festival's main audience - to think for themselves. Press independence also went out the window with the country's two main film magazines turning a blind eye to the event as if they had relocated north of the DMZ. Kim presided over a festival whose audience declined from 350,000 in 1997 to 60,000 in 2004. It's sad that he was sacked, but he hadn't secured his position either. Kim's Real Fanta is a tight, well-programmed event if lacking in Korean premieres. Puchon remains unfocused, but the quality of films were no worse than recent years despite just four months preparations. The most interesting films - SYMPATHY, DONGMAKOL, RULES OF DATING - were screening outside both events. For those that attended there is a lot of confusion over who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. Good luck to both festivals in 2006.

Posted by: Anon | Jul 25, 2005 6:38:59 AM

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