The Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BiFan, fka PiFan) has named five NZ-produced titles in the mix for this year, four features and one short. BiFan, which turns 19 this year, is Asia’s premiere genre festival.
Steven Baker’s A Love Story
Two of the titles play in the competitive Bucheon Choice line-ups. The Ant Timpson-produced NZ-Canada co-production Turbo Kid is selected in the feature competition, which offers six prizes including the KRW15 million (cNZ$19,200) headline Best of Bucheon award.
Steven Baker’s A Love Story has its world premiere in the shorts competition. Self-funded and shot back in 2013, it’s up for one of the three awards open to non-Korean titles, including the KRW5 million (cNZ$6,400) Best Short Film prize.
Out of competition, the festival’s World Fantastic Cinema line-up finds slots for a second Ant Timpson-produced title ABCs of Death 2, along with Guy Pigden’s I Survived A Zombie Holocaust and NZ-shot co-production Slow West, currently on release here.
I Survived A Zombie Holocaust
Last year PiFan (as it was then) took three Kiwi titles, Gerard Johnstone’s Housebound, Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi’s What We Do in the Shadows and Jack Woon’s short Rising Dust . Australian Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook took one of the festival’s awards, Essie Davis winning the Best Actress gong.
The festival is accompanied by the Network of Asian Fantastic Films (NAFF) project market, Asia’s largest such event for genre titles. NAFF announced its line-up two weeks ago.
Women Who Flirt
Hong Kong director and producer Pang Ho-cheung does double duty. A producer on Wan Chi Man’s NAFF project The Hell Bank Heist, his own Women Who Flirt (shown here in Event’s Cinema Asia progamme) is named in the festival line-up.
