The NAFF genre film project market that is attached to the BiFan fantasy festival in South Korea will expand to 40 projects at its upcoming July edition.
The 25th edition of the festival will overlap with Cannes, running July 8-18, 2021, with both online and offline screenings, as well as in person audience events, while NAFF (July 8-13) will be held as a virtual event for the second successive year.
NAFF organizers said that they had increased the number of selections from 30 last year to 40 this time, hailing from 29 countries and territories. These are spread across multiple different sections including the main It Project cluster, project Spotlight Korea, Works in Progress and those with partner events Nordic Genre Invasion, Blood Window and Fantastic 7. For the first time, the market has been opened to series, reflecting the impact of streaming services on the Asian production industry.
The lineup contains many familiar names from the Asian and European indie and regulars of the project market scene. They include: Khavn de la Cruz as director and Stefan Holl as producer on “100 Midget Zombie Cannibals”; Indonesia’s Lucky Kuswandi as director and Muhammad Zaidy and Meiske Taurisia as producers on “108 Days”; festival programmer and producer Anderson Le as producer on “Ash Valley”; India’s Sapna Bhavnani as director and producer (with Deepak Jayaram) on “Bearlike Man”; U.S.-based Malaysian producer Tim Kwok on “The Befallen”; producers Patti Lapus, Bianca Balbuena and Bradley Liew on director Dodo Dayao’s “Goliath”; Quentin Lee as director and producer of “How to Talk With Spirits”; and the Japanese and Filipino team of Taro Imai, Micah Tadena, and Malou Santos as producers on Mikhail Red’s “Quantum Suicide.”
NAFF was launched by Bifan in 2008 and has expanded to include an annual film school. A total of 65 projects have gone on to completion, including films such as “The King of Pigs” (2011), “The Terror Live” (2013), “Eerie” (2018), and “The Closet” (2020).