K-dramas to screen at major French television festival

Korea has been invited as the honorary guest country to Festival de la Fiction TV, a prominent drama festival funded by the French government.

It is the first time a non-French-speaking, non-European country has been invited as the festival’s honorary guest.

Producers, writers and directors of popular Korean drama series will attend the festival.

Three Korean drama series have been invited for screening -- MBC’s “W,” a fantasy romance written by Song Jae-jung and directed by Jung Dae-yoon and Park Seung-woo; tvN’s “Signal,” a sci-fi crime thriller written by Kim Eun-hee and directed by Kim Won-seok; and “The Package,” set to begin airing on JTBC in October, written by Chun Sung-il and directed by Jeon Chang-geun.

Screenings of Korean dramas are slated for Thursday and Friday.

Following the screenings, the Korean guests will lead talks at a forum about trends in Korean drama and exporting formats.

They will also meet with executives from major French television companies TF1, Canal+ and Gaumont Television to discuss French distribution and remakes of Korean dramas.

Festival de la Fiction TV is a festival funded by the French government and features drama series from major French networks. Some 35,000 festivalgoers and 2,000 TV industry personnel attend the event each year. 

The competition category this year features 41 drama series, including 25 French dramas, 10 European dramas and six drama series from other French-speaking countries.

“We hope this event will serve as an opportunity to export Korean dramas to Western Europe, which has been a dry area,” said Kim Rak-kyun, the head of global business at the Korea Creative Content Agency. “It signifies a rise in Korean dramas’ status in the world.”

The annual festival, in its 19th edition this year, began Wednesday and runs to Sunday in France’s southwestern city of La Rochelle.

By Rumy Doo (doo@heraldcorp.com)