What Do You Call This? Film Aid?

Okay … ye olde KungFuGuy just forwarded me this link and it’s so surreal that it had to be mentioned …

For those who don’t know already Korea has undergone a major surge in their film industry over the past few years and that’s largely due to the enforcement of a screen quota system that mandates Korean screens must show Korean films 40% of the time. It’s a lot like the CanCon rules we have on radio up here and like CanCon, it works. Expose people to local product, make it in exhibitors’ best interests to support and promote local product properly, and people will come support it. This leads to profitability which means people can continue making their art and honing their craft which means the local product improves and more people want to support it which leads to further profitability yadda yadda yadda …

You’d think this is the sort of thing Korea would want to continue with, yes? Well, not so much … bowing largely to pressure from Hollywood Korea is revisiting their screen quota policy with an eye to lowering the quota or scrapping it altogether. Seems 60% of the Korean market isn’t enough for Hollywood and they want more. So what is the local arts community doing about it? Singing! Yes, you got that right. A group that includes directors Chan Wook Park (Old Boy) and Kim Ki-Duk (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring) as well as actors such as Park Joon-Hoong (The Truth About Charlie) and representatives of various production companies are recording a Live Aid style protest song to be used in ad campaigns and generate publicity. Seriously. I’m not making this up. They’ve even got their own website here. Check it out.

And just to be clear … my bemusement at their response in no way means that I don’t think this is a serious issue. It is and I will be very upset if the screen quota system is struck down. I’ve often pointed to Korea when arguing that Canada needs to adopt a similar system if we’re ever going to stop bleeding all of our talent into other countries. It’s just that I keep being struck by the image of Chan-Wook Park holding hands singing “We Are The World” and it makes me giggle …