BIFF Square: Street Food and Cinema History in Nampo-dong

A cinema street that took the festival's name

BIFF Square is a pedestrian street in Nampo-dong, and its name is newer than most visitors assume: the district was formally renamed BIFF Square on February 24, 2011, after the Busan International Film Festival that had been running here since 1996.

The festival has long since outgrown it. The main venue is now the Busan Cinema Center in Centum City, an hour away across the city, and what is left here is the street the festival started on — plus the food that grew up around the crowds.

Why the area is full of cinemas

The film connection is not a marketing invention. Just after Korea's liberation in 1945 this area had one or two theaters; by the 1960s roughly twenty were concentrated in these few blocks, which is why the festival began here rather than anywhere else in Busan.

That density has thinned but not disappeared — Megabox, Lotte Cinema and CGV all still operate in the district. If you want to see a film in Busan, this is a more interesting place to do it than a shopping-mall multiplex.

The handprints under your feet

Set into the pavement are copper plates carrying the handprints of film-makers and actors, along with engraved plates naming films that screened at the festival. New ones are added each year, so the collection grows rather than sitting fixed.

They are easy to walk straight over without noticing, because the eye goes to the food stalls at head height. Look down as you come in from the Jagalchi Station end.

What to eat, and the one thing to order

The thing to order is ssiat hotteok. Ordinary hotteok is a griddled dough pocket filled with melted brown sugar; the Nampo-dong version is slit open after frying and packed with seeds and nuts, which cuts the sweetness and makes it a substantially better snack than the standard version. It is what this street is known for, and the queues are the reliable indicator of which stall to join.

Beyond that the alley runs to tteokbokki, fried skewers, grilled squid and similar. Treat all of it as grazing — the stalls are set up for one item each rather than a meal, and a sit-down dinner is better had at Jagalchi or in the alleys behind Gukje Market.

It only works as part of a bigger walk

BIFF Square on its own is fifteen minutes. What makes it worth the trip is that four separate things sit within a few minutes' walk of each other, and you can do them in one loop.

When to come

Evenings are when the street is at its best: the stalls are lit, the crowd is out, and the neon from the cinemas does what it is supposed to do. Afternoons are fine and quieter; mornings are dead.

• October during the film festival is the busiest the district gets all year
• Carry cash in small notes — most stalls do not take cards
• It is a snack stop. Plan a real meal separately
• Watch the ground for the handprint plates as you walk in
• Combine it with the wider street food circuit rather than treating it as a destination on its own