A port city in the 1990s, and a first edition in 1996

This reading places film among cultural contents with a history of only about a hundred years, then turn to festivals as a way to give national films room and to widen what audiences can see. In the 1990s, as local self-government opened, municipalities looked for ways to be known and to stir their economies. Busan was still known first as Korea’s leading port; culturally, this reading calls it barren, and citizens, they write, lacked enough to meet a cultural appetite.

Korea’s first international film festival was launched there. The first edition, in 1996, showed 169 films from 31 countries and invited 224 film people from 27 countries. At the fifteenth edition, in 2010, 307 films from 67 countries were shown, and invitees, including the market and the press, totaled 9,367. This reading also writes as if the festival had just marked its twentieth year; they do not treat those counts as current official totals. As examples of Korean directors who have gathered followings, they name Kim Ki-duk, Hong Sang-soo, and Park Chan-wook.

Cannes as a trade gate, Busan as a regional stage

Cannes, they write, has decades of tradition, is one of the world’s three major festivals, and is known for its pride. Unlike Berlin and Venice, which prepare programmes for general audiences, Cannes invites film professionals only — a closed manner that draws remarks about exclusivity and elitism. It works less as a conversation with spectators than as an outpost for international distribution. In the Cannes market, more than a thousand films are shown each year in market theatres; finished films appear, but so do ten-minute excerpts offered for pre-sale.

Busan, by contrast, is framed as a bid to make the city a centre for the moving image and to support the regional economy. During the festival, they write, audiences exceed about 200,000, and industry people about 10,000, spending on lodging, transport, shopping, and rest — not only sitting down to watch a film and leaving.

Figures from this reading, and a wish for a clearer character

This reading gives production effects of more than 500 billion won a year from start to finish, value-added effects of 200 billion won, a ripple they put between 700 billion and as much as 900 billion won, and about 10,000 jobs. These are the figures as they stood in this reading, not current official statistics. Even at twenty years, they write, Busan still leans more toward regional development than toward internationalization, and they miss a stronger originality. Korea, they add, holds some forty festivals whose identities are often unclear. They close with two references they cite: Park Kang-mi, 2011, and Park Jo-won, 2008.

The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. This reading, a student comparison of the Busan International Film Festival and Cannes: the 1996 first edition and the 2010 fifteenth, Cannes as a professional trade gate, Busan attendance and economic figures as they stood in this reading, and references to Park Kang-mi (2011) and Park Jo-won (2008).

Last updated: 15 November 2026