Last Friday, July 25th, the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan) handed out the awards for its 18th edition at the Bucheon Gymnasium during its closing ceremony. The top prize, the Best of Puchon Award, went to the Austrian western The Dark Valley. Director Andreas Prochaska was not on hand to accept his award but sent a thank you video that was broadcast in the auditorium.

 

Meanwhile, the most prolific winner of the night was the Norwegian horror comedy Dead Snow 2: Red Vs. Dead. The film earned its director Tommy Wirkola and actor Vegar Hoel the Best Director and Actor accolades, along with the Citizen’s Award, sponsored by the NH Nonghyup Bank. Other Puchon Choice winners included Essie Davis of Australian horror The Babadook for Best Actress and Fruit Chan’s sci-fi comedy The Midnight After from Hong Kong, which picked up the Jury’s Choice Award.

 

Among other feature film jury prizes, the European Fantastic Film Festival Federation (EFFFF) gave OH In-chun’s mystery horror Mourning Grave the top prize, while LEE Jung-ho’s revenge thriller Broken earned a special mention. Japanese comedy Wood Job! was awarded the NETPAC Award and finally the LG HiEntech Award for the Best Korean independent film was won by HAN Yun-sun’s 18 – Eighteen Noir.

 

The top prize winner in the Puchon Choice: Short category was Habana by Edouard Salier. The Jury’s Choice Award went to Mike Mort’s Raging Balls of Steel Glory while Best Korean Short Film went to Mould by PARK Chun-kyu. The jury also reserved special mentions for Lorenzo Recio’s Shadow and JEONG Sung-rak’s Something. Lastly, PARK Geun-bum’s Intruder picked up the Citizen’s Choice for Short Film prize.

 

Awarded film received extra screenings throughout the weekend until the close of this year’s PiFan on Sunday, July 27th. The awarding ceremony was followed by a screening of the closing film, LEE Kwon’s My Ordinary Love Story. The director and stars KANG Ye-won and SONG Sae-byeok were on hand to present the film on stage.