‘The Occupant’ Leads Bucheon’s NAFF Awards

Sonia Kil

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Hugo Keijzer’s “The Occupant” from the Netherlands, won the Bucheon prize, worth $12,800 (KRW 15 million) at NAFF, the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival’s genre film project market.

NAFF is part of BiFan’s B.I.G. industry support program. Prizes were awarded on Wednesday night.

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Phan Linh’s sci fi comedy “Dogcow” won the Bound Entertainment award, which equally comes with a cash prize of $12,800. Boaz Armoni’s “Fingernail,” an Israeli horror project, took the NAFF Award with a cash prize of $8,550. The NAFF Korean Award was presented to Yu Eun-jeong’s “Lay the Ghost” and by Nakanish Mai’s “Hana” with cash prizes of $4,270 (KRW 5 million) given to each. Also worth $4,270, the DHL award went to David Chang’s action fantasy “The Medium: The Flaming Exorcist Sinner” from Taiwan. Taiwan was the focus territory of the NAFF’s Project Spotlight 2019.

Prizewinners were selected by a jury of veteran producers including Hong Kong’s Ivy Ho, Korea’s Jonathan Kim, Ivanhoe Pictures’ Kilian Kerwin, and Jacob Wong of Hong Kong International Film Festival.

The 23rd edition of the eleven-day BiFan fantasy film festival opened last Thursday (Jun. 27) with Edgar Nito’s crime drama “The Gasoline Thieves” and will close on Jul. 7 with Korea’s “The 12th Suspect.”

2019 NAFF Award Winners

•Bucheon Award: “The Occupant”. Dir. Hugo Keijzer. Prod. Maurice Schutte.
•Bound Entertainment Award: “Dogcow”. Dir. Phan Linh. Prod. Jenni Trang-Le, Anderson Le.
•NAFF Award: “Fingernail”. Dir. Boaz Armoni. Prod. Yoav Roeh.
•NAFF Korean Award (KRW 5 million cash):
“Hana”. Dir. Nakanishi Mai. Prod. Huang Jun Xiang.
“Lay the Ghost”. Dir. Yu Eung-jeong. Prod. Kim Shin-jae.
•DHL Award: “The Medium: The Flaming Exorcist Sinner.” Dir. David Chang. Prod. Jade Lee, Philo Wu.
•Mocha Chai Award (Post-production) “Vurdalak Blood”. Dir. Santiago Fernandez Calvete. Prod. Roxana Ramos.
•Moneff Award (Editing): “A Transfer Student”. Dir. No Zin-soo. Prod. No Zin-soo.
•Sitges Pitchbox Award: “Tiger Stripes”. Dir. Amanda EU. Prod. Fei Ling Foo.
•Blood Window Award: “Recurse”. Dir. Lucas Vossoughi. Prod. Arno Krimmer.

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