Montage of Chinese films shines at Busan

Young Chinese filmmaker Charles Hu and award-winning cinematographer-turned-director Du Jie competed for the New Currents awards for first or second feature film by Asian directors. Hu's As the River Goes By deals with memories. In it, a chance encounter at a school reunion causes a train driver to investigate the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of his father. Du - who now splits his time between Japan and China - brought his directorial debut, The Height of the Coconut Trees, to the festival. The film deals with the mystery surrounding a young woman's suicide and notions of the afterworld. Her partner tries to deal with the loss together with another woman who wanders into his life.

Other pleasant surprises at BIFF 2024 included the sweeping rural drama To Kill a Mongolian Horse, the first feature from Jiang Xiaoxuan. Set in the director's home turf in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, the film found support from as far afield as Malaysia and Hong Kong. It's a measured and effective reflection on the contemporary world's marginalization of ethnic communities - a small film, in terms of the cast and crew involved as well as budget, but one that tackles very big issues.

"One of the most important things is that ethnic voices are heard," the director says. "Festivals like BIFF continue to give makers of small films like us a platform to make those voices heard."