The 31st Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) has unveiled a 13-film Japanese Animation Special program, marking the first Korea visit in 17 years for animation master Rintaro alongside four next-generation directors.
Billed as a Special Program in Focus, the lineup puts a spotlight on Japan’s animation history across a full century, mixing formative classics with buzzed-about new releases and one European work that shaped generations of Japanese animators. Most of the lineup has rarely played Korean theaters, and several titles will have their Korean premieres at the festival.
Rintaro will travel to Busan alongside directors Kadowaki Kohei, Katanosaka Ryo, Natsume Shingo and Shinomiya Yoshitoshi, who represent the medium’s newer generation. It is Rintaro’s first trip to Korea in 17 years.
The lineup’s classics section opens with Yabushita Taiji’s “The White Snake Enchantress” (1958), an adaptation of a Chinese folk tale about a young man who falls for a serpent capable of taking human form. It was the first Japanese animated feature made in full color, and it left a lasting impression on a teenage Miyazaki Hayao, who wrote in “Starting Point 1979-1996” that watching it left him in tears until dawn. The film stands as a landmark work from Toei Animation.
