BUSAN: The 30th Busan International Film Festival will stage a special Forum BIFF to mark the 30th anniversary of the Korea National University of Arts’ (K-Arts) school of film, TV & multimedia, with a hard look at how Asian film education can reinvent itself for the future.
Founded in 1995, K-Arts has been the launchpad for a generation of Korean and Asian filmmakers, building co-production bridges with Japan and China, running pan-Asian short-film labs, and powering the global surge of K-content. This year’s forum, themed Revisiting the path of Asian cinema, will spotlight those achievements while grappling with the future: how to sustain cross-border learning, plug into AI-driven change, and keep Asian schools at the cutting edge.
Sessions will examine collaborative short-film programmes, Korea-Japan and Korea-China co-productions, and the AMA+ scholarship that has seeded talent from across the region. The Campus Asia Plus initiative — linking Korea, Japan, China and Asean — will be in focus for its efforts to build an Asian animation education network that meshes advanced learning, exchange and industry tie-ups.
The three-part forum will run on 20 September, moderated by professors Choi Yongbae and Steve M. Choe of K-Arts. It will feature a keynote by cinema studies professor Kim Soyoung, presentations from animation professor Lee Jungmin, filmmaking professor Pyeon Jangwan, Cambodian director and AMA+ alumnus Him Sotithya, and producer Ahn Jihye. The closing panel will pull in film critic Lee Seunghee, Japan Institute of the Moving Image president Tengan Daisuke, Beijing Film Academy professor Liu Yu, Yale lecturer Tian Li, and Indonesian director Makbul Mubarak.
The conversation will stretch from the past three decades of K-Arts’ influence to the next thirty years of Asian cinema education — and what it will take to keep pace with technology and global demand.
BIFF 2025: 17–26 September
Asian Contents & Film Market: 20–23 September
