The 28th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN, Festival Director SHIN Chul), has revealed the 37 projects from 22 countries selected for the 2024 NAFF Project Market, including 23 NAFF It Projects, 5 Spotlight Indonesia projects, 4 Nordic Genre Invasion projects, and one project each for the Blood Window, the Sitges FanPitch and Cannes' Fantastic 7.
323 projects from 52 countries around the world were submitted for this year's NAFF Project Market. That's 44 more projects submitted from 12 more countries compared to last year, demonstrating the growing influence of NAFF as a platform for the global genre film industry. The submissions represented a wide range of genres and cinematic tastes, including history, fantasy, thriller, SF, action, and high-concept mystery. The jury commented: “There were many projects that broke new ground by incorporating the voices of diverse members of society in terms of subject matter and characters. The bold challenges, diverse genres and cinematic tastes are expected to explore new horizons in the film industry.” The preliminary jury was made up of director BONG Man-dae (Mandae Company), director LEE Yoon-jung (Directors Guild of Korea, Audiovisual Authors International Confederation), SHIN Wonsun, advisor at Hanmac Culture Corporation, CHO Yoon-jung (BLUEMOONPARK), and the BIFAN programers Thomas NAM and MO Eunyoung.
NAFF, the Network of Asian Fantastic Films, is part of B.I.G (BIFAN Industry Gathering), BIFAN's industry program. The network has been actively collaborating with international film festivals, platforms, and organisations to discover excellent film content and expand the scope of genre filmmaking, and has introduced various international projects. NAFF also has endeavoured to enlarge the number of award categories through partnerships with organisations and companies in Asia. It has continuously collaborated closely with Japan's Visual Industry Promotion Organization (VIPO), the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) and the Taipei Film Commission, the Hong Kong International Film Festival(HKIFF) Industry Project Market, CreateHK and Singapore's Mocha Chai Lab. This year, NAFF was able to add Thailand's Kantana as a new partner. In addition, at ‘Project Spotlight Indonesia', supported by the Kemendikbudristek, and at ‘Focus France', hosted by French National Centre of Cinema (CNC), the selected projects will be pitched to international film industry professionals.
Launched in 2008, NAFF Project Market is world's first-ever genre film project market. Over the past 16 years, 105 projects have been completed as feature films, attracting attention as a place of opportunities for genre filmmakers from around the world. Completed films continue to attract attention at various Korean and international film festivals such as Cannes, Sundance, or Sitges, and were released theatrically in many countries or distributed online on various OTT platforms.
Esper's Light (winner of the ‘Korean Discovery Award' at NAFF 2021), which was selected as BIFAN's entry for this year's ‘Fantastic 7', was pitched to international film industry professionals during the Cannes Film Market past May. The Tenants (2022 NAFF ‘Project Spotlight') won the Best Director Award and the FIPRESCI Award at the Singapore International Film Festival's Silver Screen Awards in 2023. In addition, KIM Mi-jo, won the Rising Films International Award at the Asian Content & Film Market for his film The Journey to Gyeongju (2022 NAFF ‘Project Spotlight') last year, securing 10 billion KRW (approx. 750,000USD) in investment. Marry My Dead Body (It Project 2020: NAFF Bucheon Award) was selected as the closing film of the 2022 Golden Horse Film Festival in Taiwan and was released theatrically in Korea last year, Tiger Stripes (NAFF It Project 2019: Sitges PitchBox Award) was awarded with the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival's Critics' Week, also last year.
The 28th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival will be held from July 4th to 14th in Bucheon City. The NAFF Project Market, part of B.I.G (BIFAN Industry Gathering), BIFAN's industry program, will take place from July 6th to 9th at the Webtoon Convergence Center.
The official press conference to announce the full line-up of the 28th edition of BIFAN, including the opening and closing film, will be held on June 12 (WED) in Bucheon (10:00) and Seoul (14:00).
