Busan International Film Festival director to resign after this month

Huh Moon-yung, the festival director for Busan International Film Festival, speaks during a press conference at KNN Theater in Busan on Oct. 14, 2022. [YONHAP]

Huh Moon-yung, the festival director of the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), the largest and most well-known film festival in Korea, said he will soon be resigning from the position, BIFF announced Friday.

Huh, during an internal meeting last week, conveyed his intention to continue working only until the end of the month and then leave the position, according to BIFF.

“Director Huh expressed his intention to resign,” a spokesperson for BIFF said. “But as he did not specify why he is resigning, we cannot clarify the reason. His resignation has not been processed yet.”

Although Huh himself has refrained from giving reasons behind his resignation, many view the resignation as his reaction to the appointment of managing director Cho Jong-kook, given that it was only two days after BIFF appointed Cho that Huh made the announcement. On Tuesday, the BIFF held a board of directors meeting and appointed Cho to the position. Cho is a former secretary general of the Busan Film Commission and Korean Film Council.

BIFF had said in a press release announcing the appointment of Cho that Huh will “oversee the selection of invited films and the planning of film festival events, and will focus on discovering promising directors and works in Korea and Asia” and that Cho will “oversee the operation of the corporation of BIFF, general office work, administrative affairs and budget, and will focus on the substantial operation of the organization.”

With the appointment of Cho, the director position of BIFF has effectively become a joint position.

“There had been a steady stream of criticism that it is not enough for just one person to lead BIFF, Asia’s largest film festival,” a film industry insider said. “However, there was internal disagreement about the structural method by which to change the old system, such as whether to solve it through a co-director system. It seems that director Huh has resigned since his opinion was not reflected.”

Regardless of the reason, challenges to the preparation of the film festival are unavoidable now that the festival director has expressed his intention to resign. The 28th BIFF this year is scheduled for Oct. 4 to 13. However, since the resignation process has not yet begun, the possibility that Huh may choose to stay at BIFF cannot be ruled out either, according to film industry insiders.

“BIFF will come up with a number of measures to deal with the situation, but there will be uncertainty about whether the film festival will be held normally in a situation where the director has expressed his resignation,” an official from the film industry said.

BY NAM SOO-HYOUN, LIM JEONG-WON [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]