While in South Korea on an official visit French President Emmanuel Macron, announced, alongside South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, that both countries will co-chair a landmark international summit dedicated to cinema, series and video games.
Dubbed the “Cinema & Moving Image Summit,” the event will bring together around one 100 industry leaders from around the world: CEOs of major global companies, filmmakers, talent, policymakers, figures from the arthouse world, as well as film education advocates.
The summit, which was first reported by the AFP, will be hosted on Sept. 7 at the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul de Vence. Jae-myung will also travel to France for a state visit on that occasion.
The agenda will tackle some of the most pressing challenges facing the sector, from the future of theatrical exhibition and the convergence of television, streaming and gaming, to film heritage preservation, sustainable production and artificial intelligence.
For Gaëtan Bruel, who presides over France’s powerful National Film Board (CNC), the stakes could not be higher. “We are living through a moment as decisive as the invention of cinema by the Lumière brothers 130 years ago,” Bruel argues, pointing that the “challenges are immense, but nothing is written in advance: this moment of crisis can be a moment of reinvention, provided we are proactive and united.”
He said, “In the early days, cinema was invented by creators and entrepreneurs. Today, a new dimension is added: we need global governance for our sector that is equal to the challenges ahead.”
Bruel is pleading for “new alliances must be forged — cinema with video games, broadcasters with streamers, Europe with Asia and beyond, and of course the United States, whose many players are ready to take part in this reinvention.”
France and Korea have a lot in common on the cultural side. They both have strong cinematic history, vibrant local industries and share similar views on the importance of authorship.
In television, South Korea has been equally successful with a number of shows that became global mega-hits on streamers, notably Netflix’s “Squid Game” created by Hwang Dong-hyuk.
South Korea was actually celebrated last month at Series Mania Festival in Northern France as the country of honor, which coincided with the 140th anniversary of diplomatic relations between France and Korea.
Series Mania reported that Korea’s content market reached $43.1 billion in 2024, up 5.7% from $40.8 billion in 2023, maintaining its position as the eighth-largest content market globally.
At the same time, both France and South Korea have experienced challenging theatrical markets in the wake of the pandemic. Once the fifth largest cinema territory worldwide, South Korea saw its box office by more than half between 2019 and 2024.
Still, South Korea – like France — is home to many celebrated auteurs, such as Bong Joon-ho, who made history with his Palme d’Or-winning dark comedy “Parasite” nabbing best picture, on top of best director, international film and original screenplay in 2020.
This year, another South Korean master, Park Chan-wook, will preside over the jury of the Cannes Film Festival.
The Cinema & Moving Image Summit will follow another initiative driven by Macron’s impulse. France previously held an International AI Summit which gathered heads of states and governments, policymakers, industry leaders, researchers and innovators in 2025.
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