Busan’s Asian Contents & Film Market is making the case to be used all year, not just for four days at the festival. Director Ellen Y.D. Kim has set out a plan for ACFM 365, a permanent database and matchmaking service, while warning that public backing has not kept up with the market’s expansion.
What ACFM 365 would do
The idea is to combine the data publishing of The A Report with the project-matching work of the Asian Project Market and Busan Story Market into one standing service. Five-year goals include turning The A Report into a regular publication, building a leaders’ forum on The A Summit, making Cinema by Brand a standalone financing model, and opening the Asian Cinema Fund to international partnerships. Kim also wants to push the count of participating countries beyond 60, and possibly above 70, by drawing more delegates from Latin America, the Arab world and Africa.
The funding gap is the risk
“The biggest obstacle is funding,” Kim told Variety. National funding for ACFM has been flat for two years even as the market’s scope has grown. Her argument is structural: film may be small, but it opens the way for other industries, so public support should be treated as industry infrastructure, not an event subsidy.
The expansion shows in exhibitor numbers. In its 21st edition, ACFM has 339 exhibiting companies and institutions from 32 countries and territories, up 17% from last year.
- Tech exhibitors grew from seven to 18.
- National agencies and film commissions rose from 62 to 79.
- Thailand, the first Country of Honor, has 28 exhibitors; Japan, the ProducerHub Focus Country, has 46.
Korea’s healthy headline hides a warning
Korea’s first-half box office rose 42% in revenue, admissions climbed 34%, and Korean films captured 64% of revenue. But there were 22 fewer Korean releases, and Korean commercial films averaged a negative 33% return in 2025. Kim describes the moment as a rebound, not yet a structural recovery.
As a result, Korean producers are planning international pre-sales and co-productions earlier, from the development stage. The Asian Producers Alliance, led by the Producers Guild of Korea and the Association of Indonesian Film Producers, will launch at ProducerHub. New money is coming from outside film too: an Indian conglomerate, Thai broadcaster joint ventures, Mongolian mining companies, a Chinese beverage brand, and Taiwan telecom and media funds backed by a public agency.
Streaming and AI are moving the floor
According to The A Report country reports, streamers are shifting from licensing rights to co-financing production. Not every market is keeping up: in the Philippines, only 32 of 88 first-half releases reached cinemas, and a Korean holdback-window agreement targeted for August did not materialise. On AI, Mateo AI Studio has raised KRW2 billion ($1.5 million) in pre-Series A funding; its feature “Steelay” will be previewed at the Work-in-Progress Showcase and opens in Korean cinemas on Oct. 20. Kim’s concern: if Asian companies do not own models trained on Asian languages and images, the IP problem seen in the platform era could repeat.
Why Busan still matters
Kim says Busan offers the most efficient Asia-facing market over four days. Projects that pass through APM and the Asian Cinema Fund often emerge at major international festivals a few years later. For European and American companies, she says, Busan is the gateway to Asia. As she put it: “Co-production used to be an option; now it is an essential strategy for sharing risk.”
Source: Variety
