Heartbreak catches a break

News from Pusan or Busan or however you want to spell it: Heartbreak Pavilion by indie maverick Thunska Pansittivorakul and Sompot Chidgasornpongse won the Busan Award, the largest prize bestowed by the Busan city government with $20,000 in prize money.

The film is a collection of stories about heartbroken people who end up trapped on a boat together.

Kick the Machine has lots of photos from Pusan.

A Korean film, Fairy Tale of a Picture Tree by Lee Kwang-mo, was also given the Busan Award.

Each film will get $20,000, says the Korea Times.

The prize was offered in the Pusan Promotion Plan, a film-marketing exercise that is a sidebar to the Pusan International Film Festival.

Among 33 official projects - 27 PPP projects from 19 countries and six New Directors in Focus (NDIF) projects by promising Korean directors - eight projects were announced at the closing ceremony at the Paradise Hotel in Haeundae, according to the Korea Times.

There's also some film marketing news from Screen International.

Hong Kong's Universe Films Distribution sold a seven-title package to Thailand.

Golden Network Asia sold Midnight My Love to CJ Entertainment and Born To Fight was sold to Korea, though I'm not sure to whom in Korea.

Citizen Dog also was included in the deal with CJ Entertainment, which is starting a CJ Collection. CJ is a film distributor and cinema-chain owner, so I presume it will be giving the Thai films a release in its South Korea.

But it also has a DVD business, so I'm holding out hope for a DVD release of both Midnight My Love and Citizen Dog -- with English subtitles, which aren't included on the Thai releases of either of these films.

(Thanks Sebu! Cross-published at Rotten Tomatoes)