Fun-tastic Film Festival

Actually, no, it's the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PIFAN). But it's fun nonetheless. Went there for a week with all the rest, as per usual. The idea of calling it a 'Fantastic' film fest is that it'll show plenty of animations, horror flicks, kung fu movies, and other such genre movies. A fair concept, given that many of the others focus on quality movies (meaning dramas, period pieces, mind bending post colonialist bits of art, which means that you won't understand it). That's one of the drawbacks of PIFAN: half the movies I saw were crap.

Or maybe I just don't know how to pick them.




Flagging support: the whole town gets into it. Or rather, the whole of one small bit of Seoul got into it. That huge flag, by the way, was draped over the side of the city hall.


Shawohada: Officially the biggest shower head I've ever seen in my life. And a joy as well every morning. You feel like a small alien craft is hovering above your head making swooshing noises...


Desk job: one of the information counters at the cinemas used. There were around five to six different screening sites (cinemas usually, but also some theatre halls), and you go to the different places depending on what you want to watch. Having said that, at this film fest the cinemas were quite far apart from one another. It became a bit of a bitch finishing one movie, rushing to another cinema and watching another movie while still on an empty stomach. But you work your way around that, usually. The counter is also where you can exchange your ticket for another movie (if you change your mind, usually cos you can't be bothered to go to the other cinema halfway across town).


Roadmap to Peace: ...and movies. Planning the night before what movies we all want to watch. The guy in white is Seo, our coordinator, while next to Damon is Jae (CHA-AY), Kirsten's Thai friend who joined us for the week.


Appologies accepted: They give a warning for movies that don't have English subtitles (if the movie is non-English, they have English subs along the bottom and Korean subs by the side of the screen). But having said that, sometimes the information is not all that good (I got caught out with Black Line, a black and white Japanese whodunnit movie). Some of the screenings are done outdoors, to be combined with a concert.


Dailies Planet: They print dailies, which are mini magazines printed...well, dailies. They carry info on the day's movies, the pictures from events the day before, and interviews, amongst other stuff.


Future's Orange: Most festivals have cool pre-recorded segments before the movies, reminding the people to turn off their phones and stuff. Pifan, for some reason, has a really cool intro, but not the turn-off-the-phones bit. Thus, they have someone (usually a 'yoja', or girl) who does that bit manually.


Stickman: Not sure if he's part of the festival, but there was a dude who directed traffic during the festival at the shopping centres. He did it with such gusto that I could not NOT take a picture of him. Reminded you of anyone, Anna and Kerry Ann? :>


Love: salty.


Money shot: (l-r) Seo (horny), Park (horny maker), Pele (thirsty), me (cool), Tascha (distracted), Damon (stoned), Kirsten (hiking. Maybe)