RIVAL by Marcus Lenz will have its world premiere in the Flash Forward competition section at the 25th edition of the Busan International Film Festival (21 – 30 October, 2020). The festival is regarded as one of the biggest in Asia, and up to 200,000 festival-goers have watched films from all over the world there in past years. This year will see the festival  continue to be a physical event albeit in a very reduced format. The Asian Content & Film Market will take place online this year.

In his latest film RIVAL, Marcus Lenz (DER MAN, DER IM WALD LEBT) focuses on the nine-year-old Roman. He follows his mother Oksana to Germany where she is working illegally. She is living there with the 62-year-old widower Gert who suffers from diabetes. Gert tries to make friends with the boy, but Roman struggles for his mother's attention. When Oksana suddenly falls ill, Roman is left alone with his rival. Gert turns out to be a good playmate until he dies in an accident. Roman is all alone and can now live out his wild curiosity and longing for freedom. Plutofilm has taken on world sales for RIVAL.

The exceptional filmmaker Christian Petzold can be seen in Busan's Icons section with UNDINE (DE/FR, Schramm Film Koerner & Weber), which premiered at this year's Berlinale and won numerous awards.

The programme of the World Cinema section includes AND TOMORROW THE ENTIRE WORLD by Julia von Heinz (DE/FR, Seven Elephants, Kings & Queens Filmproduktion), which celebrated its world premiere in early September in the official competition of the Venice Film Festival. Burhan Qurbani's highly acclaimed drama BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ (DE/NL, Sommerhaus Filmproduktion) can be seen in the same section.

All of the German films and co-productions at Busan 2020...