SKorean, Mongolian movies win awards at Busan fest

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) Movies from South Korea and Mongolia have won $30,000 New Currents Awards for emerging filmmakers at Asia's largest film festival.

Busan International Film Festival organizers said Saturday that the festival's biggest prizes went to "Pascha" by South Korean director Ahn Seonkyoung and "Remote Control" by Mongolia's Sakhya Byamba. It's the first time a Mongolian movie entered and won the competition in the festival's 18 years.

The awards, given to first- or second-time Asian directors, show the festival's efforts to discover and support the region's new talents.

The organizers said "Pascha," an unusual love story between a 40-year-old woman and a 19-year-old man, won the jury's heart with its highly original expression. They said "Remote Control" neatly portrayed tensions between reality and fiction.

The jury, led by Iranian director Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, picked "Transit," Hannah Espia's drama about Filipino migrant workers in Israel, as a special mention.

The 10-day festival that ended Saturday drew more than 200,000 visitors for the second straight year, even as a rare October typhoon forced the organizers to reschedule some events and close outdoor booths by corporate sponsors four days before the festival drew to a close.

The fair closed Saturday evening with "The Dinner," South Korean director Kim Dong-hyun's independent feature.

The festival, which opened Oct. 3 with "Vara: A Blessing," a Bhutanese drama about classical South Indian dance, screened about 300 movies from all corners of the world.