“Korean film industry is in a dire situation,” says KOFIC chair Park Ki-yong

What are the expectations of most Korean companies going into ACFM this year?
Most of them must be desperate to sell their films and content overseas as the domestic market is still not very good — we have only recovered 60% from the Covid‑19 pandemic damage. But this year we expect to see the sales recovery up to almost the same as 2019. As the industrialisation slogan goes, exports are the best way to survive.

What are the main challenges facing the industry?
The Korean film industry is in a dire situation. Almost 100 unreleased films are blocking new films from getting financed, resulting in there being fewer than 10 new films in production in the first half of this year. We worry that the number of new productions will decrease even more in the second half. Together with government officials and industry people, we are eagerly seeking various ways to overcome the crisis and revitalise the film industry. We hope to announce a specific supporting plan before the end of this year as soon as we succeed in bringing in IPTV (internet protocol television) companies to finance films.

At BIFF, KOFIC is launching a book titled When East Meets East: The Emerging Asian Co-Production Landscape. If that is a trend, how will KOFIC initiate closer collaborations with Southeast Asia and Taiwan, which have been reaping the benefits of co‑productions?
Korean filmmakers were not very interested in co‑production in the past since the domestic market was good enough. Why bother? But it’s a different story now. As the ecosystem of the local film industry, which collapsed during the pandemic, is slow to recover, they must look for other ways to make films. KOFIC’s co‑production support stopped a few years ago because of the lack of interest from filmmakers. We need to resume it as soon as we secure enough budget from the government.

The good news is that next year’s budget for location incentives has been increased almost five times compared with this year as a response to the requests from overseas and local filmmakers. A critical factor in the sustainable development of the K-movie industry is enhancing international collaboration, and co‑production is the core of it.

How will KOFIC mark its 50th anniversary at BIFF?
There will be several events to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of KOFIC and to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the opening of KAFA [Korean Academy of the Arts, founded by KOFIC], including a forum on ‘50 years of KOFIC’ and an exhibition titled ‘Looking back at Korean cinema through advertisements’. To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Korea-US alliance, KOFIC and MPA are hosting a Korean-American film night.

France’s CNC and KOFIC will host a forum titled ‘How to vitalize co-production between France and Korea, focusing on a case study of Return To Seoul’; AFAN (Asian Film Alliance Network) has a roundtable on ‘Enhancing co-operation within AFAN countries’; and there is the book launch of When East Meets East: The Emerging Asian Co-production Landscape. 

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