The Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF) has been one of Asia's most respected showcases for independent and art-house cinema since it launched in 2000. Held every April or May across venues in the city centre, it draws filmmakers and programmers from across Asia and Europe with a focus on work that wouldn't get a commercial release elsewhere.
The festival is deliberately modest in scale compared to Busan, which dominates Korean film culture, but JIFF has built a reputation for genuine curatorial risk-taking. Past films that premiered here went on to win at Cannes and Venice. The atmosphere is relaxed and cinephile rather than glitzy: screenings are in Jeonju's ordinary cinemas, and directors are accessible.
For non-festival visits, Jeonju is still a film city: the Hanok Village has been used as a backdrop in dozens of period dramas, and the Korea Sound Archive — a library of Korean traditional music — is based here.