Busan International Film Festival to Showcase Small Screen Work

Hellbound and Your Name 

The Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), which will stage its 26th edition this fall from October 6 to 15, will present a new program called ‘On Screen’ this year, dedicated to content developed for streaming services. 

Ahead of BIFF’s full program announcement in a few weeks, the festival has revealed three of the titles in the inaugural On Screen selection - the Korean dramas Hellbound and Your Name, both destined for Netflix, and the HBO Asia series Forbidden.

From Train to Busan (2016) director Yeon Sangho, Hellbound is a series set in a dystopia where people hear predictions of when they will die, at which point creatures from hell appear before them. The series, which will have its world premiere in the Primetime section of the Toronto International Film Festival, stars Yoo Ahin, Park Jungmin, Kim Hyunjoo, Won Jinah and Yang Ikjune.

Your Name is the latest show from director Kim Jinmin, who drew acclaim for the earlier Netflix original series Extracurricular. Kim’s new show is an action noir about a young woman who infiltrates the police in her quest to avenge the death of her father. Playing the protagonist is rising star Han Sohee, known for the hit dramas The World of the Married and Nevertheless.

Forbidden is co-directed by Korean-American filmmaker Josh Kim and the Thai director Anucha Boonyawatana. The two episodes which will screen at BIFF are both directed by Boonyawatana, who previously received the Kim Jiseok Award at the festival in 2017. The show follows four friends who travel from Bangkok to the countryside in order to attend a funeral for one of their fathers.