Busan Market Head Oh Seok-geun Announces Plan to Resign

Patrick Frater
·2 min read

Oh Seok-geun, head of the Asian Contents and Film Market in Busan, has resigned.

Oh’s exit follows the resignation earlier this week of Busan International Film Festival chairman Lee Yong-kwan and the earlier departure of festival director Huh Moonyoung.

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“I submitted my resignation to the BIFF. I decided this was the best choice I could make. I hope my decision will help solve the BIFF situation,” Oh told Variety. A spokesman for the festival confirmed that Oh had tendered his resignation and said that the organization will frame its response next week.

Busan, Asia’s biggest and most significant film festival has been plagued by management turmoil since early May, when Lee split the festival director’s job in two and appointed Cho Jongkook to the new position of managing director.

Huh offered his resignation shortly after and film industry guilds protested the appointment of Cho, suggesting that proper procedures had not been followed.

It was subsequently revealed in local media that Huh has been accused of sexual harassment by a festival staff member. Huh denies the accusations, which are currently being examined by an industry committee on gender equality.

Lee offered to stand down in May, to make amends for the chaos, and was initially persuaded to stay in place until completion of this year’s festival edition in October.

But this week Lee said he will go immediately. He fired off an angry letter variously blaming external political forces, media and the “wrong and immoral acts of some current executive members and Busan filmmakers.”

Oh is an influential figure who has previously headed the Busan Film Commission and was brought in as caretaker at the Korean Film Council (Kofic) after a crisis at that organization.

His proposed resignation appears to mean that another of the older generation of Busan founders and leaders is ready to make way for new management.

Well-placed sources close to KOFIC this week told Variety that the organization is concerned by the management circus at Busan, which it co-finances. But they did not give much credence to Lee’s suggestion that party politics are the cause of the crisis. Rather, they said that a resolution may be in sight, now that Cho has been dismissed and the old guard reduced.

Earlier this week, some 18 film industry guilds and trade associations published a letter calling for urgent structural reform of the Busan festival. They pointed out that this year’s edition is looming less than 100 days away.

The festival has put programmer Nam Dong-chul in charge of preparing this year’s festival, along with deputy director Kang Seung-ah, acting as managing director.

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