TEHRAN -- Organizers of Busan’s Asian Project Market (APM) has announced 30 selections for this year’s edition including the Iranian cinematic project “Persian Gulf”.
Promising directors and producers of Asia are given opportunities to meet with co-producers or financiers during APM, which will be taking place in Busan from October 8 to 11 during the 17th Busan International Film Festival (October 4 to 13), the APM website reported on Monday.
The seven-episode project “Persian Gulf” will be directed by Iranian filmmakers Ali Mosaffa, Naghi Nemati, Mona Zandi, Majid Barzegar, Mohsen Abdolvahhab, Mohsen Amir-Yusefi and Shahram Mokri.
In addition, producer Mohammad Atebbaii is slated to take the helm of the project. After financing has been arranged, shooting will begin immediately and the film will go on screen at the Fajr International Film Festival in February 2013.
“Ashes” by Santosh Sivan from India, “The Block” by Ming Jin Woo (Singapore, Malaysia), “Blue Straggler” by Soo-il Jeon (Korea, France), “The Book” by Yerbol Zhumagulov (Kazakhstan) and “Café Flower” by Jaihong Juhn (Korea) are also seen on the 2012 project list.
Various past APM projects have been successfully made into films and achieved a great deal of success in many international film festivals. In 2010, films that were first shown through APM received awards at the Berlin and Cannes film festivals.
The Turkish director Semih Kaplanoglu’s “Honey” won the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival, while Lee Chang-dong’s “Poetry” received Best Screenplay award at the Cannes Film Festival, and the Critics’ Week Award at Cannes went to “Bi, Don’t Be Afraid” directed by Vietnamese filmmaker Dang Di Phan.
Pusan Promotion Plan (PPP), one of the most important film markets in Asia, changed its official name to APM in 2011.
Photo: The Iranian directors of the film project “Persian Gulf” pose in an undated photo.
RM/YAW
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