(Selection) Zhang Yimou, president of the Busan Worldwide Movie Pageant‘s competitors jury, waded into the dispute over historic reality and artistic freedom that has engulfed Korean cinema, telling a press convention on Wednesday that historical past itself is written by folks. The query from the press didn’t identify a title, however the debate facilities on Hur Jin-ho’s “The Murderer(s).”
“Particularly relating to the movie you talked about, I’ve not seen it, although I’ve seen there are some controversies. It will depend on every particular person’s emotions,” Zhang stated. “Creation and historic fact: what does historic fact actually imply? Historical past can also be written by folks, so is historical past itself really actual? Generally that in itself is a query mark.”
The Chinese language director cited an previous saying from his nation that artistic work “originates from life, but transcends life.”
“Due to this fact, everybody’s reply could also be completely different. However as creators, we respect each creator’s imaginative and prescient,” he stated. “Maybe that’s exactly the place cinema’s fascination lies.”
The moderator advised transferring on, since some jurors weren’t acquainted with the dispute, however left the ground open to anybody who felt they needed to converse. Fellow juror July Jung did.
Jung, the director of “Subsequent Sohee,” stated she needed to converse as a result of she, too, has made movies drawn from actual occasions and brought them to audiences. “Truthfully, the emotion I really feel lately is, because the jury president stated, a movie is a movie,” she stated. “What I really feel now, despite the fact that it isn’t my movie, is that my coronary heart feels so chilly as a filmmaker.”
Jung allowed that the best way a movie handles a narrative can depart some folks harm, and that such ache can naturally come out in wounded reactions.
“However then again, truthfully, when such quick reactions observe talking about or expressing one thing after watching a movie, it makes me assume: what ought to we do subsequent time?” she stated. “However, no matter the place a movie started or the place it sprouted from, the individuals who make movies bear all of the duty inside it, as a result of it’s a world we created.”
The query additionally raised the latest unfold of controversies over particular person movies into assaults on solid and crew and campaigns to halt screenings. “The Murderer(s),” a thriller concerning the Aug. 15, 1974 taking pictures of first girl Yuk Younger-soo, the spouse of then-President Park Chung-hee, has been accused by conservative politicians and on-line critics of distorting historical past. The official inquiry held gunman Mun Se-gwang solely accountable. Hur’s movie declines to say who was behind the assault, and its detractors argue the open ending factors the finger at Park or his authorities.
A former Individuals Energy Occasion Seoul metropolis councilor has requested Seoul police to research Hur, the manufacturing firm’s CEO and the movie’s two writers for defamation, and the Administrators Guild of Korea (DGK) has condemned what it referred to as “assaults on people which have crossed the road.” The movie has stored promoting tickets regardless, topping the Korean admissions chart over the Oct. 2–4 weekend. It opens the Singapore Worldwide Movie Pageant on Oct. 21.
Zhang heads a seven-member jury for Busan’s competitors, which launched final 12 months and this 12 months options 13 titles. Alongside him sit Chinese language director Bi Gan, whose “Resurrection” performed in final 12 months’s competitors; Korean director Jung, whose “Dora” debuted within the Administrators’ Fortnight at Cannes and screens in Busan’s Gala Presentation part; Kazakh actor Samal Yeslyamova, finest actress winner at Cannes for “Ayka”; Japanese director Ishikawa Kei, whose “A Man” closed Busan in 2022; Vietnamese producer Tran Thi Bich Ngoc; and Korean actor Moon Choi, a previous winner of the competition’s finest actress award for “Our Physique.”
Requested how a jury can pretty assess demanding movies after a single viewing, Bi Gan stated: “That’s why my movies are all the time at a drawback at movie festivals, as a result of they solely want to look at them as soon as.”
He added that jurors from completely different nations and backgrounds can fill in a movie’s cultural context for each other. “A very good movie, regardless of how complicated it’s, is not going to be buried,” Bi stated.
Bi described competitors as a approach to convey movies of worth right into a shared dialogue fairly than merely to choose a winner. Tran, who stated she has been coming to Busan and its Asian Undertaking Marketplace for 20 years and referred to as the competition “a house in October,” stated Busan would elevate Asian cinema “to an entire new stage” and that the competitors was essential to that.
Choi, serving on a jury for the primary time, stated a very good movie is one which poses questions as a substitute of handing out solutions.
The thirty first Busan Worldwide Movie Pageant runs via Oct. 15.
Supply: Selection by Naman Ramachandran October 6, 2026 9:50pm PT
