Suh Byung-soo, mayor of Busan, said Thursday he will step down as chief organizer of the Busan International Film Festival amid allegations that he tried to censor a movie screened in 2014.
The feud between the Busan Metropolitan Government and BIFF began when the festival organizers screened “The Truth Shall Not Sink with Sewol,” a documentary that criticizes the South Korean government’s botched rescue efforts in the immediate aftermath of a ferry disaster that killed more than 300 people in 2014.
The Busan government had warned against showing the documentary, saying it “undermined political neutrality.” Busan is the festival’s largest stockholder and covers more than half of its annual budget.
In what the festival officials have called a “retaliatory move,” Busan authorities filed a complaint with the prosecution in December, accusing three of the festival’s ranking officials of failing to provide sufficient data on their sponsorship procurement activities.
Now, two months have passed, and Suh has announced his intent to step down as chief BIFF organizer while maintaining his Busan mayorship.
A press conference is underway in which he will announce his successor. (Yonhap)
