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Animations are going through a renaissance at present globally. Pixar films are performing well at the box office as seen through the success of Inside Out 2 (2024) and Toy Story 5 (2026). Japanese anime, in particular, is a huge draw at the multiplexes as illustrated with Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle (2025), while Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of the Mermaid Island (2026) has sold over 800,000 tickets in Korea. The unprecedented success of Kpop Demon Hunters (2025), which remains in the Netflix Top 10 chart more than a year after its release, is another reminder of the genre’s immense popularity. The evidence is quite clear at this point. Despite the challenges of Covid and a significant change in viewing habits, animation remains popular - not least with young people.

At the Busan International Film Festival, this year’s forum began with a session devoted to Asian animation. The opening remarks by Lee Woobeen, a journalist at Korean film magazine Cine 21, said that the films with the highest box office scores in China, Japan and Korea were all animations last year. While they are all key markets for animations, their paths are different from each other, he added.

Daisy Yan Du, an Associate Professor in the Division of Humanities at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in her talk on Chinese animation, she stressed that Korean animation is important in the rise of Asian Animation.

Korea’s animated industry is overshadowed by Japan and has been for decades. At the forum, Cho Kyung-hun, CEO of Studio Animal who was calling for a more market approach said that the "Korean market is neither very large nor very small. It is in a somewhat ambiguous position – not a bad market by any means, but it could be difficult to build such a structure solely within Korea." He also stated that animation is often left out when discussing the Korean contents industry that has grown almost 24-fold over the last two decades stressing the need for changes to attract further investment in the sector.

Crucially, over the last few years one of Korea’s leading film schools KAFA (the Korean Academy of Film Arts) that is funded by the Korean Film Council has been supporting the sector considerably with films including Mother Land (2023) and Climbing (2021) that had strong festival runs after premiering at festivals in Korea. With films taking years to produce and with the Korean market not yet in a position to invest significantly in the local animated industry, KAFA’s role is not insignificant.

Mother Land (2023)

Highlighting the growing prominence of animation this year the festival has no fewer than three animated features in its lineup including two KAFA films screening in Vision: Kim Si-jin’s The Flower (2026) and Kim Hyo-mi’s Earbug (2026). Youm Kyu-bock’s Long Long Night (2026) is a further animated feature screening in the festival’s main competition. It was produced by GoogGoog Studio and Studio Eon. Chang Hyung-yun’s animated short The Variety (2026) is premiering in the festival’s Korean short film program along with Yun Tae-rang’s TOE'S (2026). Chang is also a KAFA animation graduate.

KAFA’s decision to remain focused on animation has proved a fruitful one and the two impressive discoveries in Busan highlight the roles of KAFA and the festival in producing and elevating these works.

The Flower

The Flower (2026)

Kim Si-jin’s The Flower is a stop-motion animation, the second such film that KAFA has produced. Meticulously crafted the film was also written by Kim while he is credited as the art director, cinematographer, editor and responsible for the lighting demonstrating the large and all-encompassing role the KAFA graduate played in putting this film together.

The film’s intriguing setting is a crematorium as it follows its director who has spent his whole life working there. But facing his own death and told to get his affairs in order following some tests, he goes about preparing his own cremation. He suddenly passes away, but it proves difficult to cremate him because the staff at the crematorium haven’t followed the correct rituals.

Reflecting on his life the film reveals the cause for his disease working in the crematorium and how he lost his wife, it’s one of several Korean films screening at the festival this year that deals with death and grief.

For international audiences, it might be difficult to fully understand the local nuances given its focus on Korean rituals but the film’s alluring visuals and endearing story through its effective melodrama make it more accessible.

Earbug

Earbug (2026)

Earbug directed by Kim Hyo-mi is an altogether different film though it also deals with some morbid themes. It follows a writer who is attempting to scribe her first novel about an alien coming to earth, which turns into an earbud, and it goes into people’s ears. It is in search for love, but the writer herself is having trouble making relationships with those around her work. She falls out with her roommate, and a relationship with a new boyfriend breaks down while her father who frequently threatens to commit suicide remains a burden after her mother takes her own life leaving them plagued with guilt. There is also a virus spreading echoing the events of Covid 19.

One of the strengths of the animation is that it gives filmmakers more scope to experiment compared to live-action films and that’s on display here with Kim’s ambitious narrative that fuses elements of science fiction and romance tackling themes of mental health that remains a taboo topic in Korean society. It is a film that perhaps attempts to do too much but it is a complex and creative feature debut that deeply resonates.

One of the takeaways at the animation panel at the BIFF forum is that Korea’s animation industry faces many challenges going ahead, especially in terms of investment for production companies in an ecosystem that is IP-driven. While financing is, of course, instrumental so is training new talent and giving them the opportunities to helm such features, which is what state supported programs like those at KAFA have done. Many film industries do not provide such infrastructure and the fact that these animated films stood out in a crowded program further highlights the important role that film schools and festivals like Busan do to support and promote the local film and animation industry.

Written Jason Bechervaise 
Edited by kofic