Come autumn, Haeundae-gu District becomes an enormous screen. Every year in autumn, a red carpet is rolled out in front of the Busan Cinema Center, and crowds gather in small groups before the giant screen of the outdoor theater. That’s because Haeundae-gu District sits at the very heart of the Busan International Film Festival, Asia’s premier film festival. The opening and closing ceremonies, screenings of the official selection and stage greetings all take place here, and the large multiplexes and cultural facilities nearby buzz with activity as well.

Just standing in front of the Busan Cinema Center, the air feels different. It’s easy to picture the moments of the stage greetings, when directors and actors walk out from the theater after a screening to sit face-to-face with the audience—a strange thrill, as if the stories on screen were stepping out into reality. It’s almost hard to believe that so many people from all over the world gather in this city for the sake of film alone.

But the festival itself is still a month away, so the next stop is the library, tucked into a corner of the Busan Cinema Center. Domestic and international film periodicals, books on film, catalogs from film festivals around the world, master’s and doctoral theses on film and visual media, even the scripts of films that have screened at past editions of the Busan International Film Festival—countless film-related records are gathered here. It’s the kind of place where a passing question from some old movie-watching session can finally be chased down.

Why was a certain scene in a certain film made the way it was? Who was that actor who briefly appeared onscreen? What story did a film screened at some long-ago festival actually tell? Stories that flashed by onscreen in a matter of minutes can be examined slowly here. There’s something satisfying about going beyond simply watching a film to trace the time, the people and the accumulated stories behind how it was made. Even on days when no festival is underway, time spent here passes pleasantly.

Even outside festival season, the Busan Cinema Center draws crowds with a steady lineup of performances and cultural events. As a multi-purpose cultural space spanning film, live performance, music and markets, it keeps producing new scenes here all year round. Outdoor classical concerts let families enjoy the music together in the open air, and food markets take on a different theme each time—reason enough to come back.

From there, the path leads toward the beach, where the city’s culture breathes. Just a few steps in, the sea opens up—Haeundae Beach, its 1.5-kilometer stretch of white sand filling the view. A little further along the beach is Haeundae Blueline Park, built by converting the old railway of the Donghae Nambu Line. A beach train runs proudly along the coastline, and small crowds gather here just to take in the scene, cameras in hand. The sight of the train running along the sea is cinematic enough that it seems to demand to be recorded.

With ticket in hand, the next move is to board the train and become part of that scene for a while. Outside the window, waves crash against cliffs, and low rooftops flicker past in between. Getting off partway along the line and wandering a bit reveals a modest charm quite different from Busan’s more glamorous side—people cooled by the sea breeze, unhurried, clearly enjoying the slower pace. It’s tempting to slow down and linger in the same way, but the road presses on toward the next scene.

From Haeundae Beach, the road leads to Saha-gu District, and to Gamcheon Culture Village, where an entire hillside is covered in color. Approaching the entrance to the village, the view opens up: colorful rooftops climbing in staircase formation over low walls, stretching all the way up the hillside. Some call this place Korea’s Santorini, or its Machu Picchu, but no nickname really captures everything these alleyways hold.

The village’s beginnings were anything but colorful. During the Korean War (1950-1953), refugees who had lost their homes gathered one by one on this hillside. With no proper land to settle, they carved and shaped the steep slope by hand to build their houses, and the staircase-like arrangement of homes that resulted became the skeleton of today’s Gamcheon Culture Village. Looking up at the rooftops packed tightly together along the narrow alleys, it’s easy to picture the footsteps of the people who once climbed and descended this hill, day after day, just to get by.

That somber beginning gave way to today’s vibrant color, starting with a 2009 village art project. Artists, residents and local activists joined forces to paint walls, fences and buildings throughout the village, and the traces of that effort surface alley by alley—murals beside staircases, sculptures poking out between rooftops, small galleries and workshops tucked into every narrow gap. Once the village’s heavy history reveals itself beneath all that color, a walk through these alleys starts to feel different—less like a stop for a pretty photo, more like a walk over the accumulated time of people who survived. Various performances and hands-on programs are also held throughout the spaces along the way, worth returning for if given the chance.

Wandering through the alleys works up an appetite, and a stop near the entrance to the village is the natural place for a bowl of dwaejigukbap (pork and rice soup). This is the everyday food of Busan locals, the dish that represents the city—more than 700 places are said to sell it across Busan, which says something about its status. Being available just about everywhere doesn’t make a bowl in the neighborhood any less special, though. The dish is said to have originated during the Korean War, when refugees who had lost everything made do with pork bones—easy to come by at the time—simmered into broth for a meal. Much like the rooftops of this village, this bowl of soup, too, was ultimately born out of people’s efforts simply to survive; over a spoonful of the hot broth, it’s clear that the neighborhood and the dish grew from the same roots.

As the sun begins to set, the road out of the village leads to Eulsukdo Island. Located at the mouth of the Nakdonggang River, this island was formed over a long span of time as soil carried by the river settled and built up, and, true to a spot where fresh water meets the sea, countless migratory birds stop here each season. Amisan Observatory, near Dadaepo Beach, takes in the whole scene at once: flocks of migratory birds rising freely over a natural sandbar in the distance, as the sunset spreads slowly across the sky above. Under a sky dyed orange, the blurred line where the river and sea mingle gradually disappears, and the day’s long walk seems to settle naturally to a close.

Down from the observatory and a bit further into Eulsukdo Island stands a distinctive building, its walls lined with green plants: the Museum of Contemporary Art Busan, its very structure said to be a work of art in its own right. The Nakdong Estuary Eco Center, nearby, is worth a stop for a closer look at the creatures and migratory birds that call this wetland home.

Busan’s scenery, on this day, carried the kind of emotion that comes from encountering something truly grand. In Haeundae-gu District, it came from the screen that lights up again every autumn and the people who gather there from all over the world; in Saha-gu District, from the colors etched into the hillside and the blurred line of sunset where the river and sea mingle. The idea that people gathering and time accumulating can create something greater than expected seems to be alive and moving throughout every corner of Busan.