Italy and South Korea already had a government-level co-production accord. At Busan’s Asian Contents & Film Market on Sunday, the two countries’ producer communities gave that paper framework a working pipeline.
The Producers Guild of Korea and Italy’s CNA Cinema e Audiovisivo signed a memorandum of understanding at the Italian Pavilion. PGK President Lee Dong-ha signed for the Korean guild; CNA national vice president Francesco Lattarulo signed on behalf of national president Gianluca Curti.
What the pact actually does
Instead of leaving co-production to ministries, the MoU names each organization as a contact point for joint productions between the two sectors. The two bodies will pass along information about public funding available to producers in each country.
The agreement also commits both sides to a recurring exchange calendar:
- Yearly meetings and showcases in Korea and Italy
- Business-to-business sessions at Busan’s ACFM and Rome’s Mercato Internazionale Audiovisivo
- Shared intelligence on public funding and co-production opportunities
Lee framed the goal bluntly: “Italy and Korea now have a co-production framework between governments, but films are made by producers, not by frameworks.”
Why the scale matters
PGK brings a substantial Korean footprint to the table: nearly 300 members working across theatrical features, documentaries and series, including titles such as “Parasite,” “Train to Busan” and “Squid Game.” CNA describes itself as Italy’s largest representative body for film and audiovisual businesses by number of member companies, sitting within a national confederation of around 620,000 entrepreneurs across all 20 Italian regions.
That breadth matters for financing and execution. Co-production deals often stall when producers cannot find a reliable counterpart on the other side. A named contact point lowers that friction.
Part of a larger network
The Italian agreement extends a string of international partnerships PGK has built since the pandemic. The guild already holds MoUs with producer bodies in Canada, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Brazil. The same morning at ACFM, PGK signed a separate co-production MoU with the Sakha Filmmakers Association, which represents producers from the Sakha Republic in Russia’s Far East.
Curti said the partnership was a step forward from CNA’s first visit to Busan: “We welcomed the bilateral co-production agreement between our governments; today, we are delighted to begin a direct collaboration with the Producers Guild of Korea.”
The immediate test is whether these yearly sessions and named contact points convert the government-level accord into actual co-productions. For distributors and platforms, that means watching whether Korean-Italian titles begin to move from market conversations to financing announcements.
Source: Variety
