'Owl'·'Blind'·'Mihok'... Story Creation Support Bears Fruit

Through Content Grand Prize Stories and Story Creation Center
KOCCA: "Continuing Diverse Support to Eliminate Blind Spots"

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency announced on the 8th that the story creation support projects they have been conducting have produced various achievements.

A representative example mentioned is the film Owl, starring Yoo Hae-jin and Ryu Jun-yeol, which will be released on the 23rd. It is a thriller about a visually impaired acupuncturist who can only see at night witnessing the death of the crown prince and the events that follow. The original story, Owl Boy, won the Excellence Award in the Story category at the 2013 Korea Content Awards. After extensive revisions and production, it is now meeting audiences in theaters. Kim Bo-hyun, the original author, said, "Thanks to the Story category of the Korea Content Awards, the story was able to come out into the world."

The Story category of the Korea Content Awards is the largest government award program in Korea for writers and creators. Every year, it discovers original stories with potential across various genres such as performances, films, dramas, animations, comics, and publishing.

As part of the story creation support projects, the Korea Creative Content Agency also operates a Story Creation Center in Ilsan. It is a space where writers can focus on their creative work without worries. Works such as Blind by writer Kwon Ki-kyung, Why Osujae? by writer Kim Ji-eun, and There Is No Gupilsoo by writer Son Geun-joo were completed here. A representative from the agency said, "This year, forty writers will continue their creative activities."

The film Bewitching, released last month, was able to come to the world through the story distribution platform Storyum. Storyum is a distribution platform that connects creators with competitive ideas and content producers looking for new material. It has about 18,000 subscribers and approximately 4,900 stories.

Kim Rak-gyun, head of the Popular Culture Division at the Korea Creative Content Agency, said, "The importance of K-story is growing more and more," adding, "We will continue various support to ensure there are no blind spots in the process of creating K-content, from individual story creators to production companies commercializing story intellectual property (IP)."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.