Busan's Asian Cinema Fund backs three co-productions for 2026, tripling last year's slate
The Busan International Film Festival's Asian Cinema Fund has selected three international co-productions — Fukada Koji's Grateful, Jakrawal Nilthamrong's Rhizome, and Boo Junfeng's Trinity — for its 2026 Co-Production Support Fund, more than tripling last year's single-project slate. Variety
The fund, established in 2025 to spur cross-border productions involving Korea, will distribute a combined KRW140 million (about $100,000) across the three projects. That figure is up from KRW65 million (about $46,400) in the fund's inaugural year. The three films were winnowed from 15 submissions through two rounds of materials review and interviews, according to the ACF.
Fukada Koji's Grateful received the largest grant: KRW60 million (about $42,900). A Korea-Japan co-production, it has Korea as majority partner and Japan as minority, produced by Song Dae-chan and Kameda Yuko.
Jakrawal Nilthamrong's Rhizome and Boo Junfeng's Trinity each received KRW40 million (about $28,600). Rhizome, with Thailand as majority partner and Korea, France, Laos and Singapore in minority roles, centres on wartime history shared across Asia. Trinity, led by Taiwan, France and Singapore as majority partners, turns on a religious theme and draws on an extraordinary eight minority partner countries: Poland, Greece, Germany, Japan, Brazil, Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines. Across the three projects, 13 countries are involved in production roles.
The fund is open to long-form narrative features and animated theatrical releases structured as formal co-production pacts with Korea. Projects must have already financed at least 60% of their net production costs to qualify — a bar that effectively means the grant functions as finishing money rather than seed capital. Recipients are also obligated to premiere their films at BIFF, per fund guidelines published in July 2025.
What stands out is the scope of the expansion in just the fund's second year. The total purse more than doubled, the guaranteed minimum recipient count grew from one project to at least two, and the actual slate jumped to three. ACFM director Ellen Y.D. Kim noted that co-production support has broadened since the fund's launch, pointing also to the resumption of the Korean Film Council's own international co-production support programme.
The broader backdrop is busy. Japan is the Asian Contents & Film Market's Producer Hub focus country for 2026, with ACFM expanding co-production ties with Japanese producers. Former BIFF chairman Kim Dong-ho will receive the Korean Cinema Award at this year's festival. The ACF itself runs additional funding streams beyond co-production: a Script Development Fund, a Post-Production Fund, and an Asian Network of Documentary (AND) Fund.
The 2026 ACFM runs 10–13 October at Exhibition Center 2, BEXCO in Busan, alongside the 31st Busan International Film Festival, which runs 6–15 October. (BIFF; Variety)
