The Busan International Film Festival and its sponsoring city reached an understanding Monday to end their feud over the event's "artistic independence" to ensure that this year's event is a success.

The two sides will appoint Kim Dong-ho, an honorary executive director of the festival, as the event's organizing committee chairman, and make necessary amendments to the festival's rules.

Kim will replace Busan Mayor Suh Byung-soo, who recently offered to resign as the festival's chief.

The agreement between the BIFF executive committee director Kang Soo-youn and Suh comes with five months to go before this year's festival is set to run from Oct. 6-15 in the southern port city.

It also comes more than two weeks after a task force composed of nine of the country's top film bodies announced that it would ask its members to boycott the festival over "municipal interference."

The group accuses the Busan city authority of interfering with the festival's programs for political reasons after organizers were ordered to cancel the screening of a documentary about the Sewol ferry disaster during the 2014 festival. Busan foots around half of the festival's annual budget.

The documentary "The Truth Shall Not Sink with Sewol," also known as "Diving Bell," criticized the central government's rescue efforts during the ferry sinking that claimed more than 300 lives in April 2014.

As the dispute widened, Suh offered to resign as the festival's organizing committee chairman and hand over the post to a non-governmental figure in February. But his pledge went unfulfilled for months as the two sides remained divided over whom to appoint as the new chief and how to reform the festival.

Last week, prosecutors in Busan formally charged the festival's former executive director Lee Yong-kwan and three other senior members with embezzlement and fraud charges.

The 78-year-old Kim played a key role in creating and developing BIFF as Asia's largest film festival and served as its director from 1996 to 2010. In the early 1990s, he served as vice culture minister.

Before the appointment, the authorities will make a minimum change to the organizing committee rules to delete a clause that makes the mayor of Busan automatically in charge of the committee.

They decided to complete a full-scale revision of the rules before the festival's regular meeting in February with the aim of ensuring balance between the festival's independence and responsibility, and enhancing participation of regional figures in its decision-making process.

Increasing transparency of the executive committee's management of the fund for the festival will also be the focus of the revision, they said.

"We are sorry and thank the Busan citizens, film industry people in and out of the country who want BIFF to develop for their concerns and support," Suh and Kang said in a joint statement.

"We'll go back to the spirit of the original goal when the festival was launched 20 years ago and do all we can do to make it a success." (Yonhap)