PIFF Preparations

So this year is the first time The Hollywood Reporter has published dailies at the Pusan International Film Festival. In order to get the dailies up and running, I had to arrive in Busan on Tuesday, along with a team of people from Los Angeles and some others.


(The dailies do not appear to be available on the Internet, but you can read our various stories here).

It was kind of nice to get here a couple of days early and have time to get my bearings before the festival craziness begins. Tuesday night I zipped up to the Pusan National University area (for the first time in years) to check out some of the old haunts and see a friend I had not seen in years. I could barely remember the neighborhood, but it was good to check it out again.

One of the first things I saw in Busan when I arrived was a really big sign that proclaimed "No Piracy Allowed in Korea", which caused me to nearly hurt myself laughing. Turns out the government is launching a new anti-piracy awareness program (see Gregg Kilday's story here), so the posters are more a statement of intent than a reflection of reality.

Today the festival begins for real. ASSEMBLY is the opening film. Oodles of people are arriving. I suspect my leisurely pace is about to change radically.