BUSAN, South Korea--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Busan Cinema Center in Busan, Korea, is on a par with the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and the Opera House in Sydney, Australia. As the main theater of the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), Busan Cinema Center was opened on September 29th in the Centum City area of U-Dong, Haeundae-Gu, three years after the groundbreaking ceremony was held in October, 2008. The 9-story Busan Cinema Center was built on a 54,335 square meter plot at a cost of 162.4 billion Korean won. It comprises the main building, known as the ‘Cine Mountain’, with its multi-purpose performance art center and three multiplex theaters, as well as the ‘BIFF Hill’ with the BIFF Executive Office and media center, and the ‘Double Cone’ with its amusement facilities. The BIFF Double Cone serves as the central pillar supporting the Big Roof, which is the most striking feature of the Busan Cinema Center.
The construction of Busan Cinema Center, the only deconstructivist-style building in Korea, was first proposed by Austria’s Coop Himmelblau (founded by Wolf D. Prix) and was selected through an international architecture competition in 1995. The building’s most notable feature is the asymmetrical arrangement of the 10,106㎡ big roof (163m high x 62m wide) and the outdoor theater’s smaller roof (65.8m high x 99.2-120m wide). The big roof, which weighs as much as 4000 tons, is suspended by a cantilever support beam in the shape of two interlocking ice-cream cones, and this gives an optical illusory effect of floating in zero gravity.
The LED ceiling light panels can create diverse images. 42,600 separate red, green, and blue colored lights are mounted on the ceiling. The BCC will thus become a landmark building in Busan, providing outstanding lighting effects and fantastic nightscapes.
Coinciding with the opening of the Busan Cinema Center, the 16th BIFF, Asia’s largest film festival, will commence on October 6th at the Busan Cinema Center and last for 9 days until the 14th. This year, 307 films from 70 different countries will be screened, including Director Song Il-kwon’s ‘Always’ as the festival’s Opening Film.
Some 89 films will have their world premieres at the 16th BIFF, while another 46 films will have their international premieres.
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