French-Turkish filmmaker duo Guillaume Giovanetti, left, and Cagla Zencirci / Courtesy of Embassy of France in Korea
Busan, Korea's second-largest city, is quickly becoming a vibrant hub for international artistic exchange, thanks to its charming port city atmosphere and strong global networks, highlighted by the long-established Busan International Film Festival (BIFF).
The latest addition to this cultural landscape is Villa Busan, a collaborative initiative between the southern port city, Cannes, and the Embassy of France in Korea. Opened last year, this residency program provides artists with a unique creative space to inspire and develop their work.
Villa Busan welcomed its first resident artists, French-Turkish filmmaking duo Guillaume Giovanetti and Cagla Zencirci, who brought their unique filmmaking perspective to the city from October to November 2024.
The pair shared that the city's support for cultural events such as BIFF and their appreciation for Korean culture made Busan the ideal place to inspire and develop their project.
“Honestly, our involvement with the Villa Busan project predates its creation,” they told The Korea Times in a recent email interview. “For the past 10 years, we have wished it had existed because the city of Busan holds a special place in our hearts.”
They recounted their initial invitation to the film festival in 2010 and the BIFF's continued support of their work.
“BIFF's interest in our work, our growing love for Korean culture and the chance meetings we had in Busan inspired us to develop a project in South Korea,” they said. “However, they also acknowledged the need for a supportive framework, stating, “An artist residency that allows us to experience life and work in Busan was the perfect steppingstone to move things forward.”
The residency program, based in Busan's Hong-Ti Art Center, aims to foster artistic collaboration between Korea and France. Initiated by the Embassy of France in Korea, the project is the first of its kind in the country and is expected to follow in the footsteps of Villa Kujoyama, a similar French residency established in Kyoto, Japan, in 1992.
For this project, Busan provides studios and accommodations within the art center and supports exhibitions of the artists' works. The French embassy in Korea also funds round-trip airfare for the artists and provides Korean-French bilingual coordinators, while Cannes contributes 6,000 euros ($6,185) in living expenses.
Having previously been residents at Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto in 2010, the filmmakers drew comparisons between the two residencies.
“Both residencies focus on living and working in a country that inspires you,” they said. “At Villa Busan, we experienced the residency while sharing daily life with local artists, which we thoroughly enjoyed.”
Video installation artworks “Ghost & Found” by Villa Busan resident artists Guillaume Giovanetti and Cagla Zencirci are displayed at Hong-Ti Art Center in Busan, November 2024. Courtesy of Embassy of France in Korea
Bridging film, installation art
During their residency at Villa Busan, Giovanetti and Zencirci found a strong connection to the art center's focus on installation art, despite their background primarily in film. They shared that their over two decades of filmmaking experience and collaborations with artists from various fields led them to a key realization.
“Despite the differences in outcome, the processes are quite similar. They involve an unconventional vision of life, the birth of an idea, in-depth research that may take years to yield results and a long and challenging journey to find a way to express feelings and thoughts so that they can ultimately be seen or heard by others,” the duo said.
Additionally, they described "deep immersion" as their approach to the residency, noting that this immersion ultimately inspired them to create the video installation “Ghost & Found.”
“At Villa Busan, we did what we always do: we immersed ourselves in Korean daily life, lived and worked like the locals, had chance meetings, listened to their stories and nourished ourselves and our project,” they said.
“We finally came up with our video installation 'Ghost & Found,' which is a stepping stone for the feature film with the same title and dealing with the same subject that we would like to shoot in 2025 or 2026 in South Korea.”
Giovanetti and Zencirci, who have directed 10 films since 2002, including “Noor” (2012), “Ningen” (2013) and “Sibel” (2018), also emphasized the importance of chance encounters in their work.
“We always refer to ‘Go En,' the Japanese word for chance encounters, when we are asked to talk about ourselves. We met by pure coincidence and we both believe that chance meetings are not confined to the realm of the ordinary; they transcend time and space, and especially logic and reason,” they said. “Together, we are trying to capture this ephemeral beauty and make it tangible by transforming chance meetings into art.”
Video installation artworks “Ghost & Found” by Villa Busan resident artists Guillaume Giovanetti and Cagla Zencirci are displayed at Hong-Ti Art Center in Busan, November 2024. Courtesy of Embassy of France in Korea
The duo shared their impressions of Busan as a cinematic city, praising its thriving independent film scene and, most notably, its passionate cinema audience.
“'Busan=Cinema' is the motto of the city and it is well deserved. The city has cultivated a perfectly cinephile audience,” they observed, highlighting the active engagement of young audiences in particular.
As Villa Busan grows, it promises to deepen artistic ties between Korea and France and Giovanetti and Zencirci expressed gratitude for the program's support, positioning Busan as a city that celebrates cultural collaboration.
“A deep understanding of what an artist's work represents, both in the short and long term, is one of the most precious forms of support that can be offered,” they said.
They emphasized the importance of providing artists with “both the physical and the mental space necessary to transform their imagination into art,” adding, “We can confidently say that both Busan and Cannes recognize these truths and use their resources to help and support artists.”