The Busan Story Market has announced 25 official selections for its 2026 edition, drawing on original intellectual property from four Asian countries and bringing together books, webtoons, web novels and comics for potential film and audiovisual adaptation. The lineup spans 15 titles from Korea, four each from Taiwan and Japan, and two from Indonesia, according to Variety.

Two Korean names carry particular weight. Hwang Bo-reum, author of the international bestseller Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop, brings My Upstairs Neighbors to the market. Lee Geum-yi, a two-time Hans Christian Andersen Award finalist with more than 50 published books and one of Korea's most recognised children's and young-adult authors, enters with Chasm of Sorrow. Their inclusion signals the market's pull on established literary voices, not just emerging ones.

The Busan Story Market, or BSM, operates as a marketplace where original IP — books, webtoons, web novels, video games and other formats — is paired with producers and buyers looking for adaptation rights. Selected titles take part in pitching sessions and one-on-one business meetings aimed at secondary rights deals. It sits within the Asian Contents & Film Market (ACFM), the official market of the Busan International Film Festival, and runs from 10 to 13 October 2026 at BEXCO in Busan (ACFM).

Korea's share of the selection was winnowed from 138 submissions by 83 companies. Fifteen titles from 13 companies made the cut: nine books, two webtoons, two web novels and two stories. The Taiwanese selection, conducted annually with the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA), produced four titles from four companies — one each from books, webtoons, web novels and comics. Japan's four picks, chosen through the Visual Industry Promotion Organization (VIPO), consist of one book and three comics from four companies. Indonesia's two selections are both comics, drawn from a shortlist of 10 Indonesian IPs presented at the 2025 JAFF Content Market; both received the JAFF Content Market Award Goes to ACFM 2026, earning their spots in the BSM lineup (Variety).

The JAFF Content Market itself has evolved. Run by the Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival Market, it has been rebranded as JAFF IP Connection for 2026, reflecting a sharpened focus on intellectual property as the starting point for screen adaptation.

This year's 25 selections represent growth on the 18 international IP titles presented at the 2024 edition, though they fall short of the 50 official selections made in 2023. The BSM's announcement, published on the Busan International Film Festival website, describes the 2026 slate as pairing "universal emotions with fresh genre imagination," with Indonesian IPs highlighted among them (biff.kr).

The broader ACFM programme is already in motion. Registration opened on 6 July 2026, with early-bird market badges available through 9 August. Booth applications close on 21 August, online booths on 7 September. The ACFM also announced 30 official selections for the Asian Project Market on 30 July — a separate strand focused on unfinished film projects rather than IP — including filmmakers Reza Rahadian, Kangdrun, Mouly Surya and Prasanna Vithanage (Screen Daily; Variety). The Asian Cinema Fund named its 12 selections on 29 June.

For producers and buyers, the appeal is straightforward: a curated pipeline of stories from across Asia, gathered in one room over four days in October. Whether any of these 25 titles reach a screen depends on the deals struck in that room — the pitching sessions, the one-on-ones, the handshake or the option agreement that turns a web novel or a children's book into a film.