UNESCO Creative City of Film, Busan City - France Cannes MOU Signed

Busan Strengthens Global Film City Network

Expanding International Partnerships and Sharing Best Practices

Busan, a UNESCO Creative City of Film and a city hosting a world-renowned international film festival, has joined hands with Cannes, France.

From the left, David Lisnard, Mayor of Cannes, France, and Ahn Byung-yoon, Deputy Mayor of Busan.

On the 22nd (local time), Busan signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Cannes, France, to foster film talent and promote mutual exchange and friendship related to films.

Both Busan, the host city of the Busan International Film Festival, Asia's largest film festival, and Cannes, the host city of the world's biggest film festival, the Cannes Film Festival, are designated as UNESCO Creative Cities of Film. The two cities plan to establish a cooperative system to respond to the rapidly changing film and video content industry environment.

On this day, Byeong-yoon Ahn, Deputy Mayor of Busan, promised David Lisnard, Mayor of Cannes, France, to promote exchanges in various film-related fields, including short film production among UNESCO Creative Cities of Film and sharing Official Development Assistance (ODA) projects.

Deputy Mayor Ahn stated, “Based on this agreement, Busan will strengthen its competitiveness as a UNESCO Creative City of Film and continuously strive to grow as a global city through film, including challenging to be the ‘Chair City’ of the UNESCO Creative Cities Annual Meeting in September.”

He added, “During the ‘UNESCO Creative City of Film Busan Week International Forum’ held last year at the Busan Cinema Center, the ODA project exemplifying partnership among film and video professionals from Cannes and Dakar (Senegal) was impressive. Together with the Busan Cinema Center, which is currently carrying out the UNESCO Creative City of Film entrusted project, we will develop international partnerships through close exchanges and cooperation with Cannes and promote various cultural industries to share best practices with many countries.”

A UNESCO Creative City is a city that promotes unique local culture, pride, and high value-added industries with attachment, stimulating new culture and investment, and fostering a healthy region through the connection of creative cultural activities and innovative industrial activities.

The UNESCO Creative Cities Network aims to nurture cultural industries based on each city's cultural assets and creativity and to encourage economic, social, and cultural development through cooperation among cities.

As members of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in the film category, Busan was designated as a UNESCO Creative City of Film in 2014, and Cannes, France, was designated in 2021, and both have been active since then.

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