Press Conference on Main Competition

Christian Jeune, Mika Kaurismaki, Lee Hye-young, and Erick Khoo

The five-member New Currents Jury consisted of Abbas Kiarostami (Iranian director), Christian Jeune (French head of film department at Cannes Film Festival), Eric Khoo (Singaporean director and producer), Lee Hye-young (Korean actress), and Mika Kaurismaki (Finnish director and producer).

The press conference on the New Currents Awards (the main competition) at Pusan International Film Festival began on time, but the lengthy introduction of the jury members and the translations between English and Korean resulted in a significantly reduced time for questions. Only about six or seven people asked questions and the Korean press only asked about the opinions on Korean films; only one Korean journalist asked Mika about Latin American films because he had just returned from filming there.

There were only about three non-Korean journalists asking questions. One was an Italian press who asked Eric about why it took him many years to direct the second film, to which he answered that he had focused too much on the producing. Another question came from a Chinese journalist who asked for comments on the films in the main competition. Only Mika remarked that the committee had selected only the best.

As for myself, I asked about the standard for judgment of each jury members. Only Eric and Christian replied. Eric said that he would look at “how clever the art of cinematic elements is used in the film,” while Christian would “consider all the film’s elements, ranging from acting, directing, and making the film a film .”