Through the early influence of Western culture, Busan developed strong roots in the film industry and was the first city in Korea to release a motion picture. Busan has also benefitted greatly from its natural environment of mountains, rivers, and sea, which provide many popular shooting locations for films as well as for national and international TV programmes.

In recent decades, Busan has developed into a creative hub, which is nowadays vital to the Asian film and visual industry. Focusing on sustainable growth, Busan has fostered infrastructure related to film, such as the improvement of production conditions or the installation of new R&D companies.

Launched in 1996, the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) has become Asia’s premier film festival. With world-class infrastructure and professional human resources, Busan is now a standard-setter in the film industry. The Busan Cinema Centre, which was built to mark the success of BIFF, stands as a symbol of Busan, city of film. Established in 1999, the Busan Film Commission offers a full film production network covering planning, shooting and distribution.

After the designation in 2014, as a City of Film in the UCCN, Film Busan has undertaken collaboration projects, together with the member cities, that extend the existing Asian Film Network programmes, to a world level, through initiatives such as: film festival exchange programmes, international cooperation programmes for nurturing professional film human resources and film education to citizens and students, and cross-cutting collaboration works with creative cities of other fields. Furthermore, Busan is trying to all the people and the stakeholders of the UCCN member cities with the opportunities to access these creative activities and to develop their “Cultural Intelligence”

As a Creative City of Film, Busan envisages:

becoming a creative city of “Films for All”: ensuring equal opportunity for everyone in Busan to benefit from the film industry, either in the creation, production, distribution or in the enjoyment of films;

ensuring that citizens of all ages and from different communities across the city have equal opportunities to participate in a variety of film activities while guaranteeing both the physical and human infrastructure to offer creative, social and economic opportunities;

further supporting the film, tourism and leisure industries; and nourishing the city’s creative industries through developing relationships with other UCCN members through sharing experiences, knowledge and resources.