The number of invited countries alone is the largest ever, this year. The lineup includes 303 films from 85 countries, including 120 world premieres. In this year’s 24th edition of BIFF, a total of 37 screens at six theaters including the Busan Cinema Center, Lotte Cinema Daeyeong, and Megabox Haeundae will be showing films during the opening days of October 3-12. Time magazine has chosen the 2014 BIFF as the “Best Film Festival in Asia” in its “Asia’s Best” special edition. Since the early years, BIFF has on average attracted some 200,000 spectators from in and around Korea, growing to become one of the leading film festivals in Asia. The inaugural event recorded over 180,000 spectators and screened 169 invited films from 31 countries. On September 13, 1996, the international film festival opened for the first time for the purpose of developing and promoting the Asian film industry and its prospective actors and writers that had been largely shadowed by the Western counterparts. Back then, it was called PIFF(Pusan International Film Festival), instead of BIFF. Although Seoul’s Chungmuro had once taken away the “hometown of films” title, Busan has regained the glory with the inauguration of BIFF at the end of the 20th century. Famous as the hometown of films, Busan bloomed before Seoul in the theater culture in the early 20th century, and housed 22 theaters during the Japanese colonial era, leading the Korean film industry. Particularly the BIFF opening in the first week of October attracts movie fans and tourists not just from Korea but from the whole world. Globally-acclaimed annual cultural festivals including the Busan Biennale, Busan International Dance Festival, and BIFF continue to inspire the city. However, Busan has long been known as the city of art.
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