Iranian master Majid Majidi wins top prize at Busan film festival with 'Bread and Book'

Iranian director Majid Majidi's "Bread and Book" took the top prize in the competition section of the 31st Busan International Film Festival. Starting this year, the grand prize winner automatically receives eligibility for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, making "Bread and Book" the first Busan grand prize winner to earn that distinction.

The festival held its closing ceremony Thursday evening at the Busan Cinema Center in Haeundae-gu, with actor Im Si-wan serving as sole host. Majidi accepted the Busan Award grand prize at the ceremony, saying, "I dedicate this honor to the people of Iran."

Reflecting on the reality Iran has faced amid war, he added, "I hope for a world without war. A few months before filming this movie, I lost my mother. The protagonist of my films is my mother." The award was presented by Zhang Lu, the Chinese director who won the grand prize last year.

"Bread and Book" follows a rural schoolteacher struggling to keep his students fed and in class. Its original Persian title, "Ghazaye Nimrooz," means "lunch." Actor Mohammad Rahimi plays the teacher fighting to keep the school running. The film examines a reality in which responsibilities that should be borne collectively fall instead on one person's goodwill. It had its world premiere at this year's festival. Majidi visited Korea for the first time for the film.

Born in Tehran in 1959, Majidi is well known to Korean audiences for "Children of Heaven" (1997), which became the first Iranian film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Through works such as "The Color of Paradise," "Baran" and "The Sun's Children," he has long explored poverty, labor and educational inequality through a child's eyes. With "Bread and Book," he shifts his gaze to the adults who care for those children. Hooman Behmanesh, the cinematographer behind "The Sun's Children," returned to shoot the film.

The Tehran Times, an English-language Iranian newspaper, reported that Majidi said at the film's first screening during the festival, "I dedicate this film to the people of Iran and the children of Minab." Minab is a city in Iran's southern Hormozgan Province. On Feb. 28, the first day of the Iran war, a missile strike hit an elementary school there, killing more than 150 people, including about 120 children.

Jury president Zhang Yimou of China praised "Bread and Book" as "an outstanding work selected unanimously by the jury," adding, "It is also the ideal film I had in mind." This year's jury of seven included Chinese director Bi Gan, Japanese director Kei Ishikawa, Korean director Jeong Ju-ri, Korean actor Choi Hee-seo, Vietnamese producer Diep Thi Bich Ngoc and Kazakh actor Samal Yeslyamova.

Because the Busan Award grand prize now carries Academy eligibility starting this year, "Bread and Book" will automatically advance in the awards process. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences amended its rules in May to extend eligibility to the top prize winner at Busan, alongside Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Sundance and Toronto. Busan is the only Asian film festival on the list. However, the film must still meet other Academy requirements, including a theatrical release, and is submitted separately from each country's official national entry.

The remaining awards were also announced. The best director prize went to Li Yunchang of Taiwan for "To Be Ordinary." The best performance prizes were shared by Zhou Xun of China for "The Loneliness We First Met" and Kasun Himeno of Japan for "Satoko Is Always." The jury special prize went to Indonesian director Edy Cahyono for "My Mother."

The Busan International Film Festival introduced its competition section for the first time last year, marking its 30th anniversary. This year's edition, which opened Oct. 6, featured 13 films from Korea and other Asian countries. Alongside the competition, 315 films screened across eight venues. Total attendance exceeded 200,000 for the first time since 2015.