BUSAN 2011 NEW PROJECTS
Festival favourites of tomorrow
New features from Nonzee Nimibutr and Hur Jin-ho are among the
30 projects being pitched at the Asian Project Market.Jason Gray, Jean Noh, Liz Shackleton and Sen-lun Yu survey this year’s vintage
renamed this year to reflect the other changes at the festival. Its core mission remains to present a
T PROJECT PROFILES
27˚C — LOAF ROCKS (Tai) Dir Lin Cheng-sheng (pictured) Prod Maggie Kuang Synopsis A biopic about the early life of Taiwanese chef and bread-maker Wu Bao-chun. A friend
and mentor took Wu on a journey of flavours as well as a search for his own passion for love and life. Budget $1.5m Financing to date $750,000 from Taiwanese private investors The lowdown “This is my first time making a biopic and examining the bright sides of human nature, instead of the darker emotions in my previous films,” says Lin. “Besides the story of a poor boy becoming a gourmet bread-baker, I also wanted to visualise taste and flavour in films. I will add animation sequences to visualise the bread-making process.” Contact Lin Cheng-sheng
ogsunfilm@gmail.com
ABIGAIL HARM (US-HK) Dir Lee Isaac Chung (pictured) Prods Samuel Gray Anderson, Eugene Suen, Pablo Thomas Synopsis Based on the Asian folktale The
Woodcutter And The Nymph, this project is a drama set in a post-apocalyptic New York. When a lonely young woman saves the life of a mysterious visitor, he tells her to take the robe of one of the angels who come down to earth to bathe — which
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effectively renders him helpless, earth-bound and open to love. Budget $300,000 Financing to date $110,000 from private investors The lowdown Chung plans to put an emphasis on dramatic performance. He will let seasoned actors including Amanda Plummer, Will Patton, Burt Young and Ayako Fujitani work with a written script but “improvise their movements through each scene so the camera is constantly keeping up with their performance”. Contact Eugene Suen
eugene@almondtreefilms.com
ALIVE (S Kor) Dir Park Jung-bum (pictured) Prod Jang Kang-wook Synopsis A man who works in a traditional Korean soybean-paste factory has his dreams of building a home with the
woman he loves shattered. He leaves his village for Seoul where he goes through a fierce struggle to survive, becomes estranged from his older brother whom he sees as having given up on life, and eventually heads back home where the soybean paste is growing ripe. Budget $470,000 Financing to date TBA The lowdown From the director of The Journals Of Musan, winner of Busan’s New Currents Award (2010) and Rotterdam’s Tiger Award (2011), Alive was also one of the 2010 Asian Cinema Fund selections. Contact Luna HY Kim
luna@finecut.co.kr
THE BERLIN FILE (S Kor) Dir Ryoo Seung-wan (pictured) Prod Kang Hye-jeong Synopsis A North Korean special agent works as a spy alongside his wife, who is an interpreter at the North Korean
embassy in Berlin. Under the surface, he must deal with suspicion, betrayal, power struggles and assassination. Budget $9m
Financing to date TBA The lowdown From the director-producer team of The City Of Violence and The Unjust, this project is backed by leading Korean investor/distributor CJ E&M. Tipped as a Korean ‘Bourne in Berlin’ story, local stars are reported to be vying for the lead role. Contact Kang Hye-jeong
ultra98@naver.com
CHOCOLIETTA (Jap) Dir Shiori Kazama (pictured) Prod Naokatsu Itoh Synopsis A student who lost her mother at a young age avoids human contact. When she joins a film club, she learns about her
mother’s past and opens herself to a new future. Budget TBA
Financing to date TBA The lowdown “With Fellini’s La Strada as a motif, the characters find a new lease of life through cinema,” says producer Itoh. The director’s previous features have screened in Berlin and Sao Paulo. Contact Mutsuko Kumagai
kumakuma@argopictures.jp
October 2011 Screen International 21 n
he most established projects market in Asia, BIFF’s Asian Project Market, previ- ously Pusan Promotion Plan, has been
selection of works from new and established Asian film-makers looking for finance, sales agents and co-production partners. Many award-winning films, such as Lee Chang-dong’s Poetry and Turkish director Semih
Kaplanoglu’s Honey (Bal), received their start in Busan. This year’s line-up features a further crop of
potential festival favourites, along with some selected genre titles. n
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