Busan International Film Festival Adds Documentary Audience Award 

Documentary filmmakers will compete for a new honor at this fall’s 29th Busan International Film Festival. The influential South Korean festival said Monday that its upcoming edition will inaugurate an audience award for feature documentaries. The fest described the decision as an effort to cultivate deeper interest among the local audience for the documentary form.

The prize will be given to a single documentary feature competing within the festival’s long-established “Wide Angle – Documentary” section. It will be decided by a popular vote — “in recognition of popular and artistic appeal” — and comes with a 10 million Korean won cash prize.

Busan previously featured just two audience awards, one in the New Currents category and another in the Flash Forward section, which showcase the first or second features of filmmakers from Asian and non-Asian backgrounds, respectively. 

“By bringing the audience closer to documentary films, this award hopes to promote and popularize documentary filmmaking and further support Korean and Asian filmmakers in pursuing their creative endeavors,” the Korean festival said in a statement.

The 29th Busan International Film Festival will take place Oct 2-11, with the industry-focussed 19th Asian Contents & Film Market running in parallel Oct. 5-8.

Long considered Asia‘s most influential film festival, the event is trying to turn the page on a prolonged period of behind-the-scenes turmoil. The past two years have seen a sweeping set of leadership changes, including the resignations of former festival chairman Lee Yong-kwan, festival director Huh Moonyoung and market boss Oh Seok-geun. But festival organizers have been hard at work assembling a new team to reclaim the confidence of the Korean industry. Influential filmmaker turned industry administrator Park Kwang-su will be the 2024 festival’s new chairman, while former senior programmer Pak Dosin and Kang Seung-ah are serving as co-deputy directors. In March, Busan said it would postpone the appointment of a permanent festival director until after this year’s edition, “allowing ample time to seek the most suitable candidate.”