The Busan International Film Festival will begin a project with China's largest online video-streaming service Youku to discover and nurture up-and-coming Asian directors, the festival authority said Monday.
From 2015 to 2017, the "Asia Collaboration Project" will give financial support to four new directors and four established directors to produce short films each year, BIFF said in a statement.
BIFF will select three new filmmakers while Youku will select one, and they have already chosen this year's established directors, according to the statement. They are South Korea's Im Sang-soo, Japan's Naomi Kawase, China's Xiaoshuai Wang and Apichatpong Weerasethakul of Thailand.
The eight completed shorts will premiere at the annual film festival in the South Korean port city of Busan. Youku will select one finalist from among the new directors and finance a feature film for them.
This year's festival is scheduled to run from Oct. 1-10. (Yonhap)
