Barunson E&A, the South Korean production company behind Oscar-winner Parasite, is to expand into international co-production, financing and sales, beginning at the American Film Market next week.
The Seoul-based firm will divide its global operations into a sales division and a co-production and financing division, and is set to present an initial line-up of three features and a reality TV series at the AFM.
Korean and international operations will be overseen by Yoonhee Choi as managing director while Sylvie Eunyoung Kim will lead the global business as head of international division.
Formerly at CJ ENM, Choi led the overseas distribution of award-winning titles such as Parasite, The Handmaiden and The Spy Gone North, and produced three titles in 2021 including Seo Bok, Hard Hit and Nothing Serious.
Kim previously worked at K-Movie Entertainment, leading the overseas distribution of films such as The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil, which is set to be remade by Paramount; Spiritwalker, which is being remade by Lorenzo di Bonaventura; and The Roundup, which is Korea’s highest grossing film of 2022 to date.
Barunson’s AFM slate will include Nocturnal, a mystery action feature produced by Sanai Pictures, producers of Hunt and The Spy Gone North; Honeysweet, a romantic comedy written by director Lee Byung-hun of Extreme Job, Korea’s second highest grossing film; and Love Reset, a romantic comedy about a couple losing their memories during a divorce.
The line-up also includes Birdie Boys, an unscripted golf and travel reality show with five K-Pop idol stars, Leeteuk and Shindong of Super Junior, Nichkhun of 2PM, Baek-Ho of Nu’est, and Min-Hyuk Kang of CNBLUE.
In addition, Barunson’s slate includes the next two features from Parasite director Bong Joon Ho, as well as projects from Kingdom director Kim Sung-hoon; The Good, The Bad, The Weird filmmaker Kim Jee-woon; Seo Bok director Lee Yong-ju; and writer Moon Ji-won of Netflix hit Extraordinary Attorney Woo.
In a statement, the company said: “Moving forward, Barunson E&A’s sales line-up aims to represent creative and daring projects from across the world, while its co-production and financing operations aspire to produce globally successful content with world-renowned talent, placing no restrictions on film or serial format, scale, genre, location, and language.”
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