Ex-director of Asia’s top film fest charged with fraud

Lee Yong-Kwan, director of the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), speaks during a press conference in Seoul on September 2, 2014. The October 2-11 festival in the southern port city of Busan will feature 314 movies from 79 countries, including 98 having their world premiers. AFP PHOTO / JUNG YEON-JE / AFP PHOTO / JUNG YEON-JE

SEOUL — South Korean prosecutors pushed ahead Tuesday with embezzlement charges against the former director of Asia’s top film festival, despite widespread criticism that the allegations are politically motivated.

The future of South Korea’s Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) has been threatened by a bitter dispute which organizers say is rooted in political anger over the screening of a film in 2014 that was critical of the government’s handling of the Sewol ferry disaster.

Lee Yong-Kwan, the BIFF artistic director for five years before he was forced to step down in February, is accused of making fraudulent payments amounting to $27.5 million won ($24,000) to a firm that brokers sponsorship deals.

Three other former and current senior festival officials were also formally charged on Tuesday.

“We are seeking to punish those who squandered the funds for the festival … without discretion,” Yonhap news agency quoted the chief investigator Song Sam-Hyon as saying.

The prosecutors began an investigation last year at the request of Busan city council — a major BIFF sponsor and stakeholder.

The council and organizers crossed swords in 2014 over the premiere of the Sewol disaster-related documentary, “Diving Bell” (or “The Truth Will Not Sink With Sewol”).

The scathing, highly emotive film slammed Seoul’s botched rescue efforts in the immediate aftermath of the ferry sinking in April 2014 that claimed more than 300 lives, most of them school children.

Busan city mayor, Suh Byung-Soo, who serves as festival chairman, had deemed the film “too political”.

The premiere went ahead after a barrage of protests from filmmakers, but the BIFF organising committee subsequently became the target of a flurry of state probes and the festival received an unprecedented cut in state funding.

The row prompted a group of 100 prominent overseas cineastes including the directors of the Cannes, Berlin and Venice film festivals to issue a rare open letter in February, condemning the “political pressure” being brought to bear on the festival organisers.

South Korean filmmakers have vowed to boycott this year’s BIFF, saying its artistic independence has been compromised.

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