by REERA YOO
With barely a week left until its 19th opening, the Busan International Film Festival’s (BIFF) has decided to proceed with premiering the controversial Sewol ferry disaster documentary Diving Bell, despite protests from victims’ families.
“We will be showing it as planned,” BIFF director Lee Yong-kwan told The Hollywood Reporter.
The 85-minute documentary depicts the namesake rescue equipment that was used during the largely failed search for victims of the Sewol ferry disaster, which killed more than 300 passengers, mostly high school students. The film is co-directed by journalist Lee Sang-ho and documentary filmmaker Ahn Hae-ryong.
Earlier this week, a group of victims’ family members voiced their opposition to the documentary’s screening at the National Assembly, stating that the film is disrespectful to grieving family members as it portrays that the diving bell was “nothing short of a test experiment that failed to rescue even a single victim.”
According to The Korea Times, BIFF chairman and Busan’s mayor Seo Byung-soo also objected to the film’s premiere. “I don’t think screening something that can potentially feed political prejudice to the general public is good for the festival,” Seo said.
A spokesperson for Seo added that although the mayor’s opposition aligns with the wishes of the victims’ families, “there is no pressure on the festival to change the programming.”
Regardless, Cinema Dal, Diving Bell‘s distributor, has already cancelled the media’s pre-festival preview due to the large scale of controversy, reported Variety.
“We felt careful when we were initially programming the lineup,” BIFF’s head programmer Kim Ji-suk said. He added that the festival is not new to screening politically controversial films and its organizers could not find a substantial reason to remove Diving Bell from the lineup.
BIFF organizers announced that they will hold a press conference during the festival to pay tribute to the victims and rally more support for the special Sewol Bill, which calls for a full public inquiry into the accident.
The 19th edition of BIFF will kick off, as is tradition, on the first Thursday of October, running Oct. 2-11.
Photo courtesy of Variety
