Pusan 08

"There were fireworks over the Yachting Center on Thursday night as the 13th running of the Pusan Int''l Film Festival got underway in South Korea." A report from Patrick Frater and Marcus Lim for Variety, which, along with the Hollywood Reporter, has a special Pusan section up and running.

Fionnuala Halligan reviews the opening film for Screen Daily: "Rustem Abdrashev''s somewhat over-saccharined story of an orphaned exile in 1940s Kazakhstan instantly joins the ranks of films like Kolya and Cinema Paradiso - in which gruff, lonely, elderly men change the lives of photogenic young boys and rake it in at the box office in the process. Gorgeously shot and composed, The Gift to Stalin won''t appeal to cineastes, who may feel they''ve seen it all before, but despite some narrative hiccups this is still the type of accessible foreign-language film which used to charm general audiences in droves (Burnt by the Son, Il Postino, et al)."

Updated through 10/6. Posted by: dwhudson    Source