For Wednesday at PIFF, I am planning on seeing three more films. First, at 11:00 at the Lotte Cinema Centum City is my most anticipated film of the festival, Michael Haneke’s 2009 Cannes Palme d’Or winner THE WHITE RIBBON. Like his 2005 art house meets Hitchcock thriller CACHE, this one seems to have the potential to reach a larger audience. But for foreigners in Korea, this is likely the only chance to see the film in theatres with subtitles. The setting is a small town in Germany on the eve of World War I, in which a number of curious events take place. No other filmmaker is as consistently political and engaged as Haneke, and this one appears to be no exception.

At 13:30 at the Haeundae Megabox is the Korean working class drama WHERE ARE YOU GOING? ( Park Chur-Woong, 2009). The film is set in the slums of Seoul, where the home of four brothers will soon be torn down to make way for a development plan. Given that Korean society has been moving away from any kind of concern with class, this story marks a chance to explore the forgotten part of Korean society.

At 17:00 at the Lotte cinema is Theo Angelopoulos’ THE DUST OF TIME (2008). This is another film-within-a-film structure, with a Greek-American director planning on making a family saga in which he also tells the history of the second part of the 20th century. Perhaps no other current director besides the Hungarian Bela Tarr shoots scenes of such enormous length as Angelopoulos. Although now 74 years old, the most acclaimed Greek director remains one of the acknowledged masters of European film. His films are also quite inaccessible beyond the festival market, so this is a far opportunity to see his work on 35mm.

I am also hoping to attend an Outdoor screening for the first time tonight at the Busan Yachting Center. Tonight’s screening is PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, the new thriller that is drawing comparisons to THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT of a decade ago, not only for its content but also for its marketing campaign. So far the reviews have generally been positive, and outdoor screenings are usually compelling for their atmosphere as well as the film.

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