The 31st Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) has finalized jury members across four award categories: the BIFF Mecenat Award, the Sonje Award, the Netpac Award and the Fipresci Award.

The BIFF Mecenat Award, which goes to a standout Korean or Asian documentary in Wide Angle Competition and carries a prize of KRW10 million ($7,300), will be judged by Rintu Thomas, Kim Taeil and Zhou Hao. Thomas co-directed “Writing With Fire” (2021), which picked up a Peabody Award, an Oscar nomination and two Sundance prizes. Kim, who has spent years on his ongoing People’s World History project, running from “No Name Stars” (2010) through “Again the Wind Blows” (2022), previously won the Woonpa Award and the BIFF Mecenat Award itself for “Annyong, Sayonara” (2005) and “Raining Dust” (2025). Zhou, a former journalist, has built a body of observational work tracking ordinary lives and urban change, including “Cotton” (2014) and “The Chinese Mayor” (2015), the latter a prizewinner at the Golden Horse Film Festival, Sundance and the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam.

The Sonje Award, honoring an outstanding Korean or Asian short film in Wide Angle Competition with the same KRW10 million ($7,300) prize, will be decided by Anuparna Roy, Abinash Bikram Shah and Lee Ranhee. Roy’s “Songs of Forgotten Trees” (2025) and “Lovers in the Blue Night” (2026) both debuted in the Horizons section at Venice and won awards. Shah, an alumnus of the Chanel x BIFF Asian Film Academy, saw his film “Elephants in the Fog” (2026) win the Jury Prize in Un Certain Regard at Cannes. Lee moved from theater acting and producing into filmmaking, directing “A Perm” (2009), “A Leave” (2020) and “The Final Semester” (2024), telling stories built around women who have crossed borders for work, employees pushed out of their jobs, and young people just starting their careers.

The Netpac Award, presented by the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema to an outstanding film in the Vision section, will be judged by Nina Kochelyaeva, Matthew Poon and Lee Dongha. Kochelyaeva heads the Department for the Development and Approbation of Film Education Methods at VGIK, the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, and has served on selection committees at multiple festivals as a scholar, documentary filmmaker and programmer. Poon is senior project manager at HKIFF Industry and has appeared as a juror and speaker across international festivals and markets. Lee, CEO of Redpeter Films and chairperson of the Producers Guild of Korea, co-produced “Poetry” (2010) and “Hwayi: A Monster Boy” (2013) and produced “Train to Busan” (2016), “Another Child” (2019) and “Peninsula” (2020), along with “Dora” (2026), part of this year’s BIFF selection.

The Fipresci Award, given by the Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique to a Vision section film for artistic achievement, will be judged by Ma Xingxu, Teresa Vena and Roh Chul-hwan. Ma is a film critic and editor whose work spans festival reporting and in-depth interviews focused on contemporary auteur cinema. Vena trained in history, art history and Spanish philology at university in Geneva before building a career split between Berlin and Switzerland, where she writes and curates across art and film and takes on jury and programming work at festivals internationally. Roh teaches theater and film studies at Inha University, where his scholarship centers on policy questions facing the film and media industries alongside the study of visual storytelling.

The 31st Busan International Film Festival will run Oct. 6-15 at the Busan Cinema Center and venues throughout Busan, with the 21st Asian Contents & Film Market held Oct. 10-13.