Seoul, South Korea (AFP) — An Indian movie about an impoverished woman involved in a pyramid scheme has won the key prize at this year’s Busan International Film Festival, organisers announced Friday.
A total of 10 movies were in the running for the high-profile New Currents award at Asia’s largest festival, with two winners selected for the $30,000 prize.
The other recipient of the prestigious award — reserved for first or second-time Asian directors — was a South Korean film about a young carpenter who encounters a series of seemingly trivial but strange events.
Indian film “Shivamma” is director Jaishankar Aryar’s feature debut, and was lauded by the festival’s judges.
“We praise the director, who completed this story that fits our current era, for his originality and intensity,” the judges said in a statement.
The other winner, “A Wild Roomer”, is South Korean filmmaker Lee Jeong-hong’s first feature film.
It bagged two other prizes at BIFF, including the Network for the Promotion of Asia Pacific Cinema award and the KBS Independent film award.
“A Wild Roomer” uses “innovative filming techniques” to showcase its characters, who appear to spend a lot of time in a house together, the judges said.
BIFF returned at full force this year after South Korea lifted its pandemic restrictions, featuring 242 films from 71 countries, including 88 world premieres.
A total of 161,145 people visited the festival, organisers said, with hundreds of overseas guests and thousands of South Korean industry figures in attendance.