European Cinema in Pusan

by Stefania Chinzari

14/11/2002 - More than 60 European films and twenty artists to Asia’s widely acclaimed international festival (November 14th-23rd)

For the fifth consecutive year, European Film Promotion (EFP) is returning to South Korea to participate in Asia’s widely acclaimed international festival, the Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF - November 14th-23rd 2002). With financial support from the European Union’s Media Programme, EFP’s promotional activities will focus on a programme of more than 60 films from 20 European countries selected by the Festival.
In collaboration with the festival, EFP has arranged for the participation of a substantial number of European directors, actors, producers and sales agents. In addition to the main festival venue film industry representatives from throughout the world travel to Pusan to participate at the Pusan Promotion Plan (PPP), the festival’s highly regarded co-production market.
The following European artists are confirmed: Stefan Haupt, Utopia Blues’s director (Switzerland); Eugenie Jansen, director of Sleeping Rough (The Netherlands); Matthias Keilich and Ill-Young Kim, respectively Neither Filsh, Nor Fowl’s director and actor (Germany); Bungalow’s director Ulrich Köhler (Germany); Virginie Ledoyen, Ludivine Sagnier and François Ozon 8 Women’s co-stars and director (France); The Man Without A Past’s main character Markku Peltola (Finland), Susan Taslimi, director of All Hell Let Loose (Sweden); Minor Mishaps’s protagonist Henrik Prip & György Pálfi, director of Hukkle (Hungary).
Five European films within the PIFF programme are already confirmed as official submissions for the 2003 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film: 8 Women (France), Hukkle (Hungary), The Man Without A Past (Finland), Le Fils (Belgium) And Nowhere In Africa (Germany) (D).
EFP will co-operate with the Festival management to arrange several promotional events in order to present the European delegation once again to the Korean industry, press and audiences at official ceremonies, screenings and the annual European Press Conference.