The Korean Film Council (KOFIC – Chairman, OH Seok Geun) released its annual white paper on February 12. The 110-page publication, which is compiled by KOFIC’s Industry Policy Research Team, provides an in-depth analysis of the current state of the domestic film industry. The report covers topics such as box office returns, domestic distribution, the performance of Korean content in the IPTV and VOD market, overseas sales of Korean films, the Korean theater and multiplex market and gender representation in the Korean film industry. The report also includes an industry-wide breakdown of production and marketing costs versus profit returns for Korean releases. The English version of the report, which also includes descriptions of all Korean films that received theatrical releases or festival invitations over the course of the year, will be available in May. 

According to the report, admissions for local films experienced a slight decrease of 2.7% but overall total theater admissions increased 1.3% from the year before to a record breaking 219.87 million. In the auxiliary distribution market, IPTV and digital cable TV grew 5.7% from the previous year, recording sales of KRW 436.2 billion (USD 407 million), while the Internet VOD market grew 10.7%. Meanwhile, sales of local films abroad for 2017 were USD 118.8 million, an increase of 17.5% from the previous year.

The Korean Cinema 2017 report is available for free at the Korean Film Biz Zone (KoBiz) website(http://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/publications/books.jsp).