The 29th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), held for 10 days held for ten days from Oct 2 (Wed) to Oct 11 (Fri), has confirmed the juries for Jiseok, BIFF Mecenat, and Sonje Awards.

- Kim Jiseok Award, the competition of new features from leading Asian directors, will be juried by: Christian JEUNE, Prasanna VITHANAGE, and SHIN Suwon

Kim Jiseok Award was created to remember and honor the late BIFF Program Director Kim Jiseok, who devoted his whole life to discovering and supporting the growth of Asian cinema. The competition category features new works by veteran Asian directors selected for the Jiseok section. Two best films are selected and each awarded a prize of USD 10,000.

The jury for the Kim Jiseok Award at the 29th Busan International Film Festival has been appointed as follows: Christian Jeune, Director of Film Department at the Cannes Film Festival, who has contributed greatly to discovering and promoting Asian films to the world for the past 30 years; Prasanna Vithanage, an influential South Asian director and film educator, and the winner of Kim Jiseok Award at BIFF 2023 for his film Paradise (2023);

and Shin Suwon, who won the Canal+ Award at Critics’ Week of the Cannes Film Festival 2012 for her short film Circular Line (2012), and has been invited to major international film festivals for all of her works including Pluto (2013), Madonna (2015), Glass Garden (2017), and Hommage (2022).

- The documentary competition section BIFF Mecenat Award will be juried by: Mohsen MAKHMALBAF, FUJIOKA Asako, and Jéro YUN

The BIFF Mecenat Award is granted to two best documentary features, one from Korea and one from larger Asia, in Wide Angle competition section. The winner will receive KRW 10,000,000.

This year, the juries include: Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who is one of the world’s most influential filmmakers and founders of the Iranian New Wave Cinema; Fujioka Asako, the Vice Chairman of Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival who has produced multiple documentaries including Nude at Heart (2021), and a supporter of documentary filmmaking practices and global conversations around Japanese films; and director Jéro Yun, who has consistently put out works following his invitation to the Cannes Film Festival for Mrs. B., A North Korean Woman (2016) and short film Hitchhiker (2016), and visited Busan in 2020 for his documentary Song Hae 1927 (2021) about the late entertainer Song Hae.

- The Asian short film competition section Sonje Award will be juried by: Yamanaka YOKO, Constance TSANG, and LIM Daehyung

The Sonje Award is given to two best Korean and Asian short films in the Wide Angle section, and each winner is awarded KRW 10,000,000.

The jury for the Sonje Award has been appointed as follows: Director Lim Daehyung of Moonlit Winter (2019), which was selected as the closing film of the BIFF 2019; Director Constance Tsang, who won the French Touch Prize of the Jury at Cannes Critics' Week with her debut feature Blue Sun Palace (2024); and Director Yamanaka Yoko, who won the FIPRESCI Award in Directors’ Fortnight section at the Cannes Film Festival for Desert of Namibia (2024).

The 29th Busan International Film Festival is building up anticipations with the announcement of the jury line-up for main competitions, and will be held for ten days from Oct 2 (Wed) to Oct 11 (Fri) at the Busan Cinema Center.

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