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Organisers of Asia's largest film festival defended their decision to air a controversial documentary on the South Korean ferry tragedy as the event, visited by a record number of people, drew to a close yesterday.
The world premiere of the Korean documentary Diving Bell (or The Truth Shall Not Sink with Sewol) cast a long shadow at the 10-day 19th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF).
The film questions rescue operations - and the use of the piece of equipment from which it takes its title - during the Sewol ferry tragedy in April that claimed more than 300 lives, the majority of them schoolchildren.
"People were just voicing their opinions," festival head Lee Yong-kwan said yesterday of the controversy.
"Once we made the decision - to screen the film - we had to be responsible for the decision."
Organisers reportedly came under pressure from local politicians, including the Busan mayor, to withdraw the film from the programme because of its sensitive nature.
A group of Korean directors also staged a press conference during the festival at which they called for an official inquiry into the tragedy.
Overall, BIFF drew a record audience of 226,473 people who watched more than 300 films, among them 96 world premieres.
Meanwhile, films focusing on family issues in Korea and Iran shared the top award at BIFF.
End of Winter from Kim Dae-hwan and 13 from Hooman Seyedi were to be handed the two US$30,000 prizes given for the New Currents award for first- or second-time Asian filmmakers when the festival drew to a close later yesterday.
New Currents jury head and the Oscar-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi said End of Winter was a unanimous choice by the jury. The film is a tale of how a family deals with a shock announcement from their father.
The Iranian production 13 - which shows how a young boy copes after being driven from the family home - showed "inventive camerawork" and "dynamism", Farhadi said.


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Controversy over ferry tragedy piece rocks Busan film festival

Lee Yong-kwan says once they made the decision to screen the film, they had to be responsible for the decision.

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Asia

The world premiere of the Korean documentary Diving Bell (or The Truth Shall Not Sink with Sewol) cast a long shadow at the 10-day 19th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF).
