"Let's save Korean movies"...Film Council to Invest 10 Billion In

Theater View ⓒ Yonhap News

The Korean Film Council will invest 10 billion won in mid-budget Korean films. It is the will to save the waist of "K-Movie."

The Film Promotion Committee will hold a briefing session on the budget production support and planning development support project during the 2025 Film Promotion Committee at Cinema Tech, the Korea Film Archive located in Sangam-dong, Seoul, from 2 p.m. on the 23rd (Thursday).

The mid-budget Korean film production support is a new project to be implemented this year to reflect the industry's demand for improved film investment and production environment, which has been contracted due to the prolonged slump in the film industry. It aims to promote the production of new mid-budget works that play a pivotal role in the Korean film industry to actively encourage private investment, restore the virtuous cycle structure of the film industry, and improve film profitability.

The support target is a live-action film with a net production cost of 2 billion won or more and less than 8 billion won, with the total support budget of 10 billion won, and the support fund per episode is paid differently within 30% or 1.5 billion won of the net production cost.

It is characterized by the recovery of profits generated by the opening of theaters and sales of domestic and foreign value-added markets for two years after the first theater release, if profits are generated more than the total production cost excluding the Youngjin Commission's subsidies, they are recovered within the subsidy limit.

If selected for the mid-budget Korean film production support project, it is mandatory to conclude a main investment distribution contract or an individual procurement contract for the equivalent total production cost within three months of signing the agreement, and crank-in is conditional at most six months after signing the agreement.

Meanwhile, the planning and development support project is subdivided according to the creative entity and development stage in order to expand the possibility of producing Korean films of various genres and materials. In particular, this year's support budget was worth 2.5 billion won, an increase of about 1 billion won from the previous year, and the number of applications also increased to 141 cases, up 56 from the previous year.

The writer section of the Planning and Development Support Project supports each stage of the development of the scenario draft in the treatment and the adaptation of the scenario draft in the second stage. In addition, the production company division consists of two projects: initial planning and filmmaking. In the initial planning project, the treatment and the scenario section newly established this year will be divided into support.

The film industry focused on film production and investment attraction, and expanded the scope of support to new producers. In addition, a new incubation project will be established to support planning and development expenses and various educational programs for new production companies.

Han Sang-joon, chairman of the Korean Film Council, said, "Support for mid-budget films, the waist of Korean films, is like a blood transfusion to the difficult Korean film industry," expressing confidence that the project will play a role in saving the waist of Korean films.