An art hall for Busan's film festival[Yonhap Photo]
South Korea's film industry decided Monday to boycott Asia's biggest film festival this year in an escalating row with the host city of Busan over alleged censorship and interference.
The boycott was declared by an association of nine film industry groups, which said its decision was supported by 90 percent of members in a vote through social media and telephone.
"It's regrettable to make an extreme decision ... but we will boycott this year's Busan International Film Festival (BIFF)," the association said in a statement.
The decision, however, was not final as the association indicated it could return to the festival only if Busan city mayor Suh Byung-Soo pledges to end his high-handed interference in the festival's operation. There was no immediate response from the mayor who has tried to reshuffle the festival's organizing committee, citing alleged corruption.
Since its inception in 1996, the city-funded BIFF has grown up to become one of Asia's most significant film festivals. But a dispute erupted in 2014 after it screened a documentary about the South Korean passenger ferry that sank with the loss of more than 300 lives.
The 6,825-tonne Sewol ferry sank off the southwest coast in April 2014. A total of 295 bodies were recovered, but nine remained unaccounted. The overloaded Sewol was carrying 476 people, including 325 high school students. Only 75 students survived.
The shocking accident -- blamed on the ship's illegal redesign and overloading left unchecked by regulators -- prompted calls to overhaul the nation's lax safety standards and tackle deep-rooted corruption.
The festival's organizing committee led by Lee Young-kwan rejected Suh's request to remove the documentary, which highlighted the government's initial sloppy rescue operation, from the festival lineup.
Lee and supporters have accused the Busan mayor, who automatically served as head of the BIFF organizing committee, of refusing to change rules to give the film festival "independence and autonomy".
A week ago, a Busan court approved Suh's request to stop Lee from increasing the number of organizing committee members from 87 to 155, a move aimed at securing the committee's greater autonomy.
Lee's three-year term officially expired in February. Without taking action on Lee's extended term, however, the city government has filed a complaint with prosecutors against Lee and two senior committee officials for alleged accounting fraud. Film industry workers have accused city officials of trying to remove Lee and his supporters in retaliation for the screening of the Sewol documentary.
Aju News Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
