Fan Bingbing and Michelle Yeoh Shine at 31st Busan Film Festival

The Busan International Film Festival marked its 31st edition Tuesday with one of its most star-laden opening ceremonies in recent memory, drawing Fan Bingbing, Michelle Yeoh, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alfonso Cuarón, Kore-eda Hirokazu, Lee Chang-dong, Na Hong-jin, and a roll call of Asian cinema’s finest to the port city for a night that mixed Hollywood glamour with homegrown pride. Busan Mayor Park Chun Jae-soo declared the festival open, delivering his first opening-night address as mayor. He urged international guests to catch what he called Busan sickness, describing it as the irresistible desire to keep returning to the city.

Festival director Jung Hanseok framed the edition around a core question the programming team kept returning to during selection: what does Busan call a good film? The answer, he said, was thirteen competition titles chosen from thousands of submissions as the most honest portraits of contemporary Asian life. The stakes are considerable because BIFF is the only Asia-based festival among the six worldwide whose competition Grand Prize winner qualifies for Academy Award consideration in the International Feature Film category, joining Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Sundance, and Toronto in that designation. Jung also thanked the festival staff, Busan citizens, and filmmakers worldwide for their support through difficult challenges.

Zhang Yimou is serving as jury president of the competition. Jung welcomed him to the stage to address the audience. In an age of rapidly advancing artificial intelligence and increasingly democratized filmmaking, making a good film is becoming more and more difficult, Zhang said. To put it in terms of Chinese philosophy, filmmaking depends on hard work, but even more on luck. Joining Zhang on the seven-member jury are Chinese director Bi Gan, Japanese director Kei Ishikawa, South Korean actor Moon Choi, South Korean director July Jung, Vietnamese producer Tran Thi Bich Ngoc, and Kazakh actor Samal Yeslyamova.

Zhang noted that four of the seven jurors are outstanding women working in film, representing a positive step forward. Ann Hui received the Camellia Award, an honor established in 2024 by BIFF in partnership with Chanel that recognizes film professionals who push boundaries and advance the status of women in cinema. From my first visit to BIFF in 1996 to standing on this stage today receiving such a meaningful award, this gives me even more motivation to keep making films, Hui said.

Michelle Yeoh received the Asian Filmmaker of the Year Award, presented with an introduction by Choi Min-sik that recalled her history-making achievements. The ceremony set a vibrant tone for the days ahead, promising deep cinematic discourse, international collaborations, and a celebration of diverse storytelling from across Asia and beyond. As the festival progresses, attention turns to the competing films and the decisions of the distinguished jury.