I had the amazing opportunity to go OVERSEAS to 🇰🇷 Korea 🇰🇷 for the Busan International Film Festival this year!!

CareerJourney 💅🏻 And I went under their Platform BUSAN youth filmmakers programme! You can totally do it too btw 👀 Here’s my experience (all the good AND bad) + all you need to know:

🤨 What’s Platform BUSAN?

- A networking platform for new independent filmmakers (AKA YOU 😚)

- It’s a 4-day programme consisting of lectures by world-renowned masters, interactive programmes among new filmmakers, and case studies on investment and co-production.

- PB aims to help every filmmaker grow by sharing experiences and seeking opportunities for solidarity and cooperation.

🤷🏻‍♀️ How to get into Platform BUSAN?

- You need to be a young filmmaker/budding filmmaker (age doesn’t matter iirc!)

- PB requires an application process where you have to get a recommendation letter from someone else (e.g. your colleague, boss/supervisor, lecturer) and share works you’ve done before!

- There’s NO application fee or payment needed for the programme so it’s FREE 🤑 You just need to secure your accommodation and air tickets yourself

- BTW you only get 2 CHANCES to go to PB!! So if you’ve gone once, you only can go one more time.

👍🏽 Platform BUSAN perks!

- 4 free tickets DAILY to watch their screenings

- Pitch & Meet sessions for you to practice pitching your story to an audience + get feedback!

- Lots of talks and lectures about the industry (e.g. Asian film market) and about practical knowledge (e.g. sound editing)

- One official networking event to connect with other youth filmmakers across the globe 🤩

☺️ My experience (Platform Busan)

• SCHEDULE

- PB launched their schedule quite late but it was quite easy to plan what we wanted to attend bc there were max 4 events everyday!

- You need to note the location of the events + screenings you’re going for tho bc at some point my friends and I had to run from one location to the next to catch our back to back events/screenings😂

• FILM SCREENINGS

- PB releases extra tickets for every film the day before their screening date! It was SUPER difficult to actually secure a ticket bc they get snatched up within minutes of their release…. We stuck to booking them manually at their physical ticket counter instead (whole other story tho… read on to find out)

• TALKS + LECTURES

- There were a lot of interesting talks and lectures throughout the event. As a video editor, I really enjoyed the Sound Design and Post Production lecture! Their other talks like the Film Fund Talk were great for directors and producers looking to fund their next feature film or short film!

- I didn’t manage to catch the Pitch and Meet sessions but I heard from my friend who went that it was really interesting to hear everyone’s pitches + see how they did it, and also to be able to get constructive feedback on her own pitch. She was super nervous but her pitch turned out to be one of the most liked pitches! During networking session, quite a number of people came up to her to talk about her pitch (talk about networking opportunities!!)

• NETWORKING

- NGL I was the most nervous for this cus it was my first official AND international networking experience omg..

- BUT it turned out really fun!! There were a lot of free drinks and food so like liquid courage helped a lot too HAHA

- I learnt so much from the networking sessions and realised I was actually quite underprepared 😭 I did up 2 post on how to prepare for a networking session and tips for a better networking sesh if you want to know more!

- Besides the official Platform BUSAN networking session, there are also many other networking opportunities hosted by different countries that you can go for. The most popular one is the Indonesian Night (hosted by Indonesia ofc)! Lots of people flock to the event and you get to network with big shots and senior industry people ✨

☺️ My experience (Busan International Film Festival)

- Separate experience for BIFF which are just the screenings!

• CINEMAS

- 3 separate locations:

Busan Cinema Center (outdoor and indoor theatre )

CGV Centum City

LOTTE CINEMA Centum City

- You can bring your own drinks and food into the cinemas which is crazy… brought in my coffee to idk how many cinemas HAHA

• TICKETS

- Tickets for all screenings run out extremely fast bc BIFF is such a big event! You’re fighting against locals and tourists for tickets 🥲🥲

- My friends and I had to sit by the ticket counter and flip through the programme booklet to find films we wanted to watch that fit within our schedule. Even then it wasn’t guaranteed that there would be tickets! So we ended up not being able to watch everything we wanted, and instead, got tickets for wtv films were available LOL (free for us since we were under PB)

• FILM SELECTION

- This was quite disappointing… It was really a hit or miss with these… like I’d say 50% of the films I watched were bad and the other half were good.

- The best ones for me were their short film screenings bc you get to watch a bunch of shorts at one go!

• POST SCREENING Q&A

- Not guaranteed that all post screening Q&As will have English translation 🤨🤨

- For an international festival, that was a bit disappointing.. my friends and I had to walk out of a theatre twice bc there were no English translations 😭

- I think you really have to be super brave and request for English translation if not they might not provide it. They mostly translate in Korean only! English translation is more of an after thought LOL

• MERCH

- Their merch is damnnnn cuteeeee especially the fluffy keychains and pins!!

- Unfortunately I couldn’t get them in time cus they sold out so fast 😭 a lot of it was preorder but you would need a Korea address cus everything would come in 2-3weeks.

💭 Overall thoughts

- Despite some disappointment with the festival itself, Platform Busan on its own is actually quite a great experience!! It’s definitely worth going bc you only have such a small window to go try it out!

- I would definitely go again and network harder if I can HAHA despite being an introvert at heart, it was really fun getting to know others who are in the same industry both in Singapore and overseas ✨

⭐️ My tips if you want to go for BIFF/PB

- Fly in at the start of the festival so you can get first dibs on all the films you want to watch AND the merch!

- Watch films you know likely won’t come to SG (e.g. obscure foreign films, films that will likely get censored or banned in SG)

- Visit the Film Market to see film festivals you can enter your short films or features in.

- Follow my networking tips I linked above ^ to seriously slay your networking sessions!

- Go eat all the yummy food around the area esp the pork bone soup opp BEXCO 🤤

LONG POST but that’s the full experience!! Please go experience PB and BIFF yourself bc it truly is an experience to rmb 🥰

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