Generative AI is moving from experiment to industry across content sectors, and video production is where the shift is most visible in Korea. This report highlights the surge in AI film festival entries and the investment, export and broadcast programs now built around them to show how AI content is being organized as regional industrial policy.
AI Video Moves from Screening to Investment and Export
Entries to Korea's AI video festivals are surging, driven largely by overseas submissions. Gyeongsangbuk-do is expanding the festival beyond screenings with investment, export and broadcast-technology programs.
Key Issues
Overseas entries jump more than twentyfold: The AI video contest at the 2026 Gyeongsangbuk-do International AI·Metaverse Film Festival (GAMFF) drew 3,403 entries from 97 countries, up from 1,075 a year earlier. Overseas entries rose from 72 to 1,587 and domestic entries from 1,003 to 1,816.
Prizes and festival screenings: Expert judges selected 39 finalists, while 40 works, including an online Popularity Award winner, shared a total prize pool of 100 million won, with 20 million won for the Grand Prize.
A second AI festival opens in Seoul: The first K-CULTURE AI International Film Festival is set for September 6 at enTravel in Gangnam, with 184 entries from 37 countries. Eight award-winning directors from Russia, Egypt, Austria, Japan and China are traveling to Korea for the festival.
AI spans the full production pipeline: The festival's AI Music Video Gold Prize goes to 'AFTERIMAGE' by SPECTRA, a K-pop group made up of AI agents, with AI used across the song, the visuals and the virtual performers. Its creator says the aim was to preserve human emotion inside an AI-made work.
Pitching sessions run alongside the screenings: Gyeongsangbuk-do added a Content Connect Day at GumiCO on September 3, where Win & Media, BRG, Nonstay and HelloWorks pitched to venture capital firms. Consultations tied to a 150 billion won K-culture fund also took place that day.
Exhibition floor and export desks: Twenty-eight companies exhibited in the AI Excellence Exhibition Hall, nine of them based in Gyeongbuk. Gyeongsan hosted a three-day game festival and one-on-one export consultations linking Korean studios with buyers including ByteDance and Sega.
A broadcaster signs on for a virtual studio: Gyeongsangbuk-do, Pohang and KBS signed an AI media innovation agreement on September 4 to build an AI and XR virtual studio inside KBS Pohang and to train media staff. Pohang is positioning itself as an AI-culture convergence city.
Heritage sites as nighttime screens: Gyeongju opened National Heritage Media Art Daereungwon on September 4 for a 24-day run to September 27, with media-art projections shown nightly across four royal tombs.
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