NICE, France — President Lee Jae-myung said South Korea and France will each invest 500 million euros, or about 800 billion won, in the film and video industries over the next five years, speaking at the Lumiere Summit held in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, on the 7th.
Lee, who attended the summit as co-chair alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, made the remarks in his opening address, saying he wanted to announce the launch of a "Global Film and Video Industry Investment Cooperation Initiative" for the prosperity and mutual growth of the film and video industries. Lee said the partnership, proposed by South Korea and embraced by France, would combine investment to revitalize each country's own film and video industries with joint investment and co-production between the two, serving as a solid stepping stone for local content to reach the global stage. He said he hoped it would extend beyond bilateral relations to the wider world and become a light that brightly illuminates a new future for the global film and video industries.
Lee said the media environment and audience behavior have changed significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, and that the rapid spread of artificial intelligence technology is accelerating major shifts in how films and video are produced and consumed. Failing to respond properly to the changing times would be a clear crisis, he said. He then laid out an agenda that included the crisis facing theaters, the threats and opportunities brought by AI, independent film and diversity, and mutual growth and cooperation between the local and the global.
He stressed that South Korea would lead the production of local content that people can relate to across borders and language barriers, while fulfilling a responsible role in establishing mutual growth and coexistence between the local and the global as the first principle of the global film and video industries. Ceaseless innovation and outstanding creativity have been the secret to turning crisis into opportunity, he said, adding that if the industry innovates more and creates more inventive content, it will move toward greater prosperity.
In his address, Macron said the way content is created, produced and consumed today is changing at an unprecedented scale and speed. Our attention is being scattered across an ever-growing number of screens, he said, and algorithms are increasingly determining what we consume.
He said the economic model that has funded creative work for decades is being completely overhauled. Generative AI is opening up remarkable possibilities, he said, but it is at the same time raising questions about copyright, about how we understand creation, and about how much we can trust the images we see.
Macron said we must not fear any of these changes, but must not be swayed by them either. No country can build the future alone, he said, and because we face a global challenge, our response must also be global. The choices we make today will shape tomorrow's creative work, he said.
