“Safety is our first and foremost issue,” Yun Kim, head of the BIFF’s publicity department, told Variety.
As Typhoon Kong-rey is about to hit the city of Busan, the festival earlier announced that outdoor events that had been originally set at the BIFF Village on the Haeundae Beach have been moved to Dureraum Square outside the Busan Cinema Center.
According to Kim, however, concern about the weather is growing and the festival had to make further decisions whether to remove the outdoor installments, which might be dangerous if blown and knocked off by Kong-rey.
“[Removing installments and posters] might [dampen] the festival mood, but after a series of meetings, we have come to a conclusion that we’d rather be overly protective than being regretful later,” said Kim. “All the outdoor signs, banners and posters that might bring on any danger will be destroyed and removed by tonight. We already ordered new ones so that we can hopefully re-install them the day after.”
One of the main concerns of the festival is the outdoor screenings of “My Tyrano: Together, Forever” and “More Than Blue” that are set for 8 p.m tonight (Friday) and Sunday, respectively.
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“According to the ticketing service team, many tickets for ‘My Tyrano’ have been canceled already, because the audiences are threatened by the typhoon and have decided not to come out at all,” Kim said.
The outdoor screening of Taiwanese film “More Than Blue” is one of the most highly anticipated by the festival-goers in town since popular actor Jasper Liu is scheduled to be on the stage to meet the audience.
“There is a possibility that we have to cancel the screening,” said Kim. “We are trying our best to figure out whether there is a possibility for us to rearrange the screening of the films and stage greetings [indoor], if we end up canceling those events.”
Events that were set to take place at the Dureraum Square might once again be moved to take place inside the Cinema Mountain building of the Busan Cinema Center. All the decisions will be made by tomorrow morning and announced officially.
Some incoming flights have been delayed by the bad weather.