The Busan International Film Festival has unveiled 23 features for its Vision Korea and Vision Asia sections, filling out its showcase for Korean and Asian independent cinema ahead of the reveal of this year’s main competition slate.

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BIFF selected 12 films for Vision Korea and 11 for Vision Asia. The two strands were introduced last year, part of a broader overhaul that also saw Busan launch its first formal main competition section. The festival describes its Vision program as a showcase for new Korean and Asian independent cinema. The section grew out of Korean Cinema Today – Vision, which traditionally focused on emerging Korean filmmakers. When Busan expanded Visions’ remit to cover all of Asia, it also broadened the section to include mid-career directors alongside newcomers.

Among the Korean selections, Park Kun-young returns with Things I Left at the Theater, a drama about a film journalist searching for an old friend’s short film. Jang Woojin brings Cosmic Trace, centered on two people reflecting on love, loss, chance and fate at the boundary between life and death. Kim Miyoung, whose A Lonely Island in the Distant Sea won Busan’s DGK Megabox Award in 2023, is back with Some Detective, about a writer confronted by figures from her past. Both Some Detective and Shin Dongmin’s Not For You received post-production support from BIFF’s Asian Cinema Fund this year. (The full Visions lineup is below.)

On the broader Asian side, Vietnamese filmmaker Nguyễn Hoàng Điệp returns with 1982, about a bankrupt filmmaker searching for her missing mother and uncovering family secrets. Her first feature, Flapping in the Middle of Nowhere, premiered in Venice Critics’ Week in 2014 before screening at Busan. Filipino filmmaker Arvin Belarmino brings Ria, a folk-punk drama about a musician fighting to preserve her home and music, while Mongolia’s Sakhya Byamba, winner of Busan’s New Currents Award in 2013 for Remote Control, returns with Zogsool, a satire set around an isolated gas station during the early days of COVID-19. Thai actor Inthira Charoenpura makes her directing debut with Bua, co-directed by feature newcomer Phensiri Klangsurin.

BIFF earlier named Kim Jong-kwan’s The Table: Day and Night as its 2026 opening film. The Seoul cafe-set romance, a loose follow-up to his 2016 feature The Table, will world premiere at the Busan Cinema Center on Oct. 6, with star Kim Minha hosting the opening ceremony. Michelle Yeoh will receive the Asian Filmmaker of the Year honor, Hong Kong auteur Ann Hui the Chanel-backed Camellia Award and festival founder Kim Dong-ho the Korean Cinema Award.

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The festival’s full competition lineup is still to come. BIFF will unveil its complete official selection in Seoul on Sept. 1 at its official opening press conference. 

The 31st Busan International Film Festival runs Oct. 6-15, with the Asian Contents & Film Market held Oct. 10-13.

Vision Korea

BALER, dir. Oh Sehyeon
Beyond Love’s Horizon, dir. Park Songyeol
The Birds, dir. Sohn Hyun-lok
Cosmic Trace, dir. Jang Woojin
Earbug, dir. Kim Hyomi
The Flower, dir. Kim Si-jin
FULL MOON, dir. Jeong Jihye
Not For You, dir. Shin Dongmin
Nothing Has Happened Yet, dir. Shin Sun
Some Detective, dir. Kim Miyoung
Space, dir. Park Hong-min
Things I Left at the Theater, dir. Park Kun-young

Vision Asia

1982, dir. Nguyễn Hoàng Điệp (Vietnam)
After the Song, dir. Ryohei Kumamoto (Japan)
Birds in the Dark, dir. Shashank Walia (India)
Bua, dirs. Inthira Charoenpura, Phensiri Klangsurin (Thailand)
The Cord, dir. Darkhan Tulegenov (Kazakhstan)
Dead End, dir. Isabella Lam Lok-hin (Hong Kong, China)
Hinotama: Ball of Fire, dir. Takenoshin Yaza (Japan)
Ria, dir. Arvin Belarmino (Philippines, Netherlands, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Japan)
SELVI, dir. Sailesh Rathnakumar (India, Saudi Arabia)
Slumber, dir. Mani Moghaddam (Iran)
Zogsool, dir. Sakhya Byamba (Mongolia, Germany)

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