30 Short Films not to miss at the Busan International Short Film Festival 2017 (Part 1)

By Asian Film Festival on April 25, 2017 • ( Leave a comment )

We present a list of 30 short films you cannot miss at the Busan International Short Film Festival (BISFF) that is taking place from April 25th – 30th, in Busan (South Korea).

32 Souls by Sai Naw Kham – Myanmar | 2016 – 25:30 min.

An old woman from MongHtet in northern Shan State in Myanmar looks back on a life marked by privation and loss. Her memories are interwoven with images that touch on this conflicted state’s past, present and future.

Schedule
April 26th – Wednesday – CINEMA II – 10:00 am
April 28th – Friday – CINEMA II – 17:30 pm

Ambubagging by Han Jungjae – South Korea | 2016 – 23:16 min.
Korean Competition

Intern Kim Minjee is giving CPR with an Ambu bag to an 86-year-old patient named Lee Sookja. Sookja’s condition is not well and it looks as if she’s ready to depart from the world. Despite constantly paging Sookja’s grandson and guardian, he has yet to appear. Minjee continues the Ambu bag ventilation on Sookja when she gets an urgent call from her mother. Her mother tells her to hurry because Minjee’s sister is having a baby.

Schedule
April 28th – Friday – CINEMA II – 15:00 pm
April 26th – Wednesday – CINEMA II – 20:00 pm

Ambulance by Sebastian Torngren Wartin – Norway | 2016 – 15 min.
International Competition

Two female ambulance paramedics get caught up in a conflict with a group of Romanian immigrants, after being called out to what seems to be a false alarm. The shift leader, Sanne, is faced with a dilemma that forces her to make a choice to solve the situation a choice that has fatal consequences, but makes it difficult to decide who is right and who is wrong.

Schedule
April 26th – Wednesday – CINEMA I – 12:30 pm
April 27th – Thursday – CINEMA I – 20:00 pm

Anyway Home by Pablo Kaes – Germany | 2016 – 20:21 min.
International Competition

Vincent and Babacar were forced to leave their home in Cameroon for different reasons. In a refugee camp near Berlin they bump into each other. Babacar has family in Denmark and is supposed to be picked up at the Danish border. They decide to walk there together. They have no money and no papers. After days of walking through the cold and rough winter it seems as if the exhaustion could kill Vincent. As they finally get close to the border they receive a call: there is a problem.

Schedule
April 26th – Wednesday – CINEMA I – 17:30 pm
April 30th – Sunday – Cinematheque – 13:00 pm

Trailer

Arnie by Rina B. Tsou – Taiwan, Philippines | 2016 – 23:52 min.
International Competition

While docked at the port of Kaohsiung, Filipino seaman Arnie buys a ring with the help of his mates. He plans to propose to his girlfriend back home over the internet. What was meant to be the happiest moment of his life soon takes a downward spiral when he finds out that she is pregnant – Arnie is not the father of the child. Like a fish out of water, the life of migrant seamen working in Taiwan is a daily struggle…for the catch is plenty down south, but the waves are choppy and brutal.

Schedule
April 27th – CINEMA I – 15:00 pm
April 28th – CINEMA II – 12:30 pm

Trailer

Ascension by Pedro Peralta – Portugal | 2016 – 18 min.
International Competition

During the sunrise, a group of peasants tries to rescue the body of a young man from a well. Women veil in silence. Men resist with all their strength. At the center of them all: a Mother waits for her son’s body ransom. The wait is over. From the depths of the earth men pull out the body of the young man. How can life come to an end if everything in nature is eternally reborn? In the distance the sun floods the horizon. A new day lies ahead.

Schedule
April 27th – Thursday – CINEMA I – 12:30 pm
April 29th – Saturday – CINEMA II – 20:00 pm

Between Us by Maciej Miller – Poland | 2017 – 30 min.
International Competition

A young couple in their 20s are expecting a child but don’t know they will cope. Faced with unexpected pressures and emotions they decide to separate and give the child up for adoption. They do not make this decision easily, with only two months remaining until the baby is due. The situation they find themselves in leads to conversations and experiences that will have a lasting impact upon the rest of their lives.

Schedule
April 26th – Wednesday – CINEMA I – 12:30 pm
April 27th – Thursday – CINEMA I – 20:00 pm

Clan by Stefanie Kolk – Netherlands | 2016 – 22:53 min.
International Competition

A tight-knit group of people live and work at a derelict farm. No one knows the woman in a black raincoat who has been wandering around their land all day. At first, they don’t worry about her. But the closer she gets, the more she starts to get in their way.

Schedule
April 26th – Wednesday – Cinemateque – 10:30 pm
April 29th – Saturday – CINEMA II – 12:30 pm

Trailer

Fight on a Swedish beach by Simon Vahlne – Sweden | 2016 – 14:50 min.
International Competition

EPIC BEACH FIGHT!! This is what happens when you yell siegheil and call someone’s wife a whore. He had it coming.

Schedule
April 27th – Thursday – CINEMA I – 15:00 pm
April 28th – Friday – CINEMA II – 12:30 pm

Trailer

Forestry by Tsuta Tetshuichiro – Japan | 2016 – 24:58 min.
International Competition

New forestry worker Kozue Hayashi starts her day as usual in the mountainous region in Tokushima prefecture. She wakes up early when it is still dark outside burns firewood to warm her room. She demonstrates she can do the same work as men by using heavy machinery and faces many troubles in the mountains doing work she is not used to. This is her story.

Schedule
April 26th – Wednesday – CINEMA I – 15:00 pm
April 29th – Saturday – CINEMA II – 15:00 pm

Trailer

If you leave by Dodo Dayao – Philippines | 2016 – 20 min.
Landscape of Asian Shorts Section

Two ghost hunters are working in a haunted house. Nothing happens inside the house, but ghost hunter Cash continues to feel a strange vibe on his way home, and on his father at home, making him feel still imprisoned in the haunted house. Who are the people who keep repeating “I not Y” to the screen? The fear of the invisible and the connection through devices creates an unending cycle in the story. Latest film by director Eduardo Dayao, who has shown remarkable directing through Violator (2014). Jinna Lee

Schedule
April 29th – Saturday – CINEMA II – 17:30 pm
April 28th – Friday – Cinematheque – 18:00 pm

Le Bouquet by Julien Segard, Romain Carciofo – France | 2016 – 10:29 min.
International Competition

On a deserted road, driving an antique car, Stéphane hurries up to a wedding whom he is the witness. Terribly late, he realizes that he forgot the bride’s bouquet. Fortune favors him when he has the opportunity to take possession of a funeral bouquet tied on a tree. But fate takes it out on him when his GPS loses signal. Unable to get his bearings, he will have to take with him the only person who crosses his path, and who is able to help: Charlotte…who just placed her funeral bouquet on the tree

Schedule
April 27th – Thursday – CINEMA I – 15:00 pm
April 28th – Friday – CINEMA II – 12:30 pm

Trailer

Letter #69 by Lin Hsin-I – Taiwan | 2016 – 19:14 min.
Landscape of Asian Shorts Section

Taiwan, 1954. Shi Sui Huan is imprisoned for hiding her brother who was resisting the government. A year and half later, she is executed. Images of the letters she wrote to her family from prison, her personal belongings, newspaper clippings, and money are shown on screen in tune with the sound of a running film projector, giving the effect of a vivid reenactment of the past event. The film is a historical essay and a song of sorrow remembering Shi Sui Huan and 201 other victims of the dictator’s white terror. Jinna Lee

Schedule
April 28th – Friday – Cinematheque – 18: 00 pm
April 29th – Saturday – CINEMA II – 17:30 pm

Trailer

Line by Shin Jihoon – South Korea | 2016 – 17:17 min.
Korean Competition

The man has maintained a living by putting up advertising flyers. On one of his routes, the house door slightly opens. He enters the house, only thinking about stealing enough food for dinner. The house is very quiet and inside, there is a stiff, tightly closed door. The man (who has no business doing so) tries to open the door. When he gets it to open, he finds the bodies of an elderly woman who committed suicide and a young girl. At that moment, someone comes and rings the bell.

Schedule
April 26th – Wednesday – CINEMA II – 20:00 pm
April 28th – Friday – CINEMA I – 15:00 pm