P.I.I.F.

This sunday just past I attended the Pusan International Film Festival. Its the largest film festival in Asia, and probably the most prestigious. This year the festival had 245 films from 63 different countries. Yumi, one of my Korean friends invited me to come with her friends to some of the Sunday showings. She had an extra ticket to the first showing and we were able to get enough extra tickets at the exchange booths to get our group into each movie.
The first movie we went to was called "The Bet Collector." The film was from the Philippines, and was about the numbers (gambling) game called Jueteng. Apparently its a massive problem in the Phillippines, where it is one of the biggest sources of criminal income in the country, making hundreds of millions of dollars and employing tens of thousands of people. The last Phillippino president lost his office because of his connections to Jueteng. The movie is set totally on location in the slums of Manila. It follows a middle aged woman who spends her days walking through the slums soliciting bets, earning a few american dollars for a whole day's work. The movie was a low budget affair, and had the feel of documentary film making. At times the handheld camera work and meandering plot was frustrating, but the lives and poverty the movie showed were very affecting. We were lucky enough to be there for the festival premier, so we had a chance to attend a discussion with the Director, Cinematographer and the Actress who played the main character. It was an interesting experience, since the Phillippine crew and actress spoke English as their second language, and the audience was mostly Korean. So each question had to be translated into English for the crew and then their answers were translated back into Korean. It took quite awhile and I wondered how much meaning was lost in the process.
The second movie we saw was called Das Frualien. It was a German film, which told the tail of three women who work in a small restaurant. The youngest character moves through the film like she is in a pinball machine, propelled by her fear of impending death from leukemia. It was a well told story, at once tragic and sweet. The acting was great, and although the story was a bit predictable it was also good, honest story telling. My only big complaint was the directors penchant for focusing his camera in on his cast so tightly that it felt like you were viewing them through a magnifying glass.
The third movie, 9th Company, came from Russia. Apparently it was a huge blockbuster there last year, becoming the country's highest grossing, post-communist film. The film is partially based on real events of a company towards the end of the Russian-Afgan war, which was almost forgotten during the Russian pullout from Afganistan. The company guarding a mountain top and facing destruction before the Russian army finally remembered to evacuate them. The story itself was nothing remarkable, containing most of the traditional war film elements. However, the directing, cinematography and locations were incredible. The film was largely shot in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan (I imagine Afganistan is not the safest place to film a Russian movie :) but the mountain shots were increadible. Considering that they weren't on a Hollywood budget, the special effects and war scenes were up there with some of my favorite war movies.
Anyway, it was a good day and I really enjoyed my first Asian film festival experience.