I don’t normally enjoy myself at big red carpet film festivals, Cannes made me depressed for instance, But here in Pusan, we felt at home as documentary directors, not just token minority representatives of the film ecosystem. It is due to the efforts of the PIFF documentary programmer Hong Hyosook and her team who carved out a space for documentaries here. As a result, the documentary programme is rich and varied, especially solid is the section of indie Korean documentaries.
Hyosook, or Ms Hong as she is known to her younger colleagues was a documentary film director herself, as is her sister. She came on board at PIFF 12 years ago to help out then she stayed on. Along the way she beefed up the documentary programme, helped set up the Asian Network of Documentary Fund which funded part of Invisible City. She said one day, she may go back to making documentaries again. I wish I took a picture of her. She is one cool lady.
