29th BUSAN International Film Festival

Award Winners

The 29th Busan International Film FestivalThe Asian Filmmaker of the Year

This award is granted annually to the Asian filmmaker or filmmaking organization who made the most significant contribution to the advancement of the Asian film industry and culture throughout the year. This year’s recipient is Kurosawa Kiyoshi, who has led popularity with a large body of films including Cure (1997), Pulse (2001), Bright Future (2002), and Wife of a Spy (2020). This year two of his latest films—Serpent’s Path (2024) and Cloud—will be screened as part of the Gala Presentation section.

KUROSAWA Kiyoshi

Japan Director

Born in Kobe, 1955, Kurosawa Kiyoshi began making 8mm films at university and debuted with his commercial feature Kandagawa Pervert Wars (1983). Fixing his name as a key figure of the Japanese horror genre with the internationally acclaimed Cure (1997), Kurosawa directed a strong line of horror films including Pulse (2001), Loft (2005), Retribution (2006) and Creepy (2016). Yet rather than genre, it is the deeper philosophical concerns of human existence and piercing insights into modern Japanese society that lie at the heart of Kurosawa’s cinema, notably with Barren Illusions (1999), Bright Future (2002) and Tokyo Sonata (2008), the final having been awarded the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival 2008 and Best Film at Asian Film Awards 2009. To the Ends of the Earth (2019) was screened as the closing film at Locarno Film Festival 2019, and Wife of a Spy (2020) was awarded Silver Lion for Best Direction at Venice Film Festival 2020.