France and South Korea have each pledged €500 million to a joint initiative aimed at strengthening the global screen industries, with the first funding instruments expected to be launched between 2027 and 2031.
According to Variety, the Lumière Partnership was announced on Monday at the Lumière Summit in Saint-Paul-de-Vence.
The initiative will remain open to other countries and will focus on companies with the ambition and capacity to compete in international markets.
The summit is co-chaired by French President Emmanuel Macron and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung.
“France and South Korea have taken different paths, but both have shown that openness to the world can strengthen, rather than erase, a distinctive creative culture,” Macron wrote in an opinion article for Variety.
France’s contribution will be administered through Bpifrance, the country’s national public investment bank.
Working with the Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée, Bpifrance has already supported nearly 150 companies through its French Touch programme.
The French funding will provide equity investment to help companies expand beyond their domestic markets.
It will also support research, development and creative innovation, while offering co-financing arrangements to share risks with banks and private investors.
South Korea’s matching contribution will bring the partnership’s total funding to €1 billion, or approximately $1.16 billion.
The initiative will follow principles agreed at the summit, including placing human creativity first, protecting copyright and promoting cultural diversity.
The announcement comes as France records a sharp increase in international production spending.
Since January, international productions have committed €628.5 million to projects in France, including €379.9 million for fiction, €207.1 million for animation and €41.5 million for visual effects.
The figure is expected to approach €1 billion by the end of the year, nearly twice the previous year’s total.
The productions include live-action films and series, animation and visual-effects projects for studios and streaming platforms from countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy, Egypt and Indonesia.
The growth has been attributed to improved tax incentives and public investment through France’s Grande Fabrique de l’Image programme, which has expanded studio capacity, technical infrastructure and workforce training.
The Lumière Partnership is among several commitments announced at the summit, which brought together 300 participants from more than 60 countries.
