French President Emmanuel Macron and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung opened the first-ever Lumière Summit on Monday in the hilltop village of Saint-Paul-de-Vence, near the French Riviera, unveiling a sweeping five-year investment plan for the global film and audiovisual industry.
The two leaders announced an investment of one billion euros over five years to support what they called “the image sector,” jointly presiding over an event that has drawn some of the biggest names in global entertainment.
A summit born from shared anxiety over cinema’s future
More than 200 industry leaders from across film and the moving image gathered at the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence for the summit, which French outlets including BFM TV, La Croix and France 24 covered extensively as it unfolded.
The event, dubbed the Lumière Summit in honor of French cinema pioneers Auguste and Louis Lumière, was organized by France’s CNC, the state body overseeing policy for film, television, video games and digital content.
Participants included representatives from major Hollywood studios such as Disney and NBCUniversal, Netflix, the CAA talent agency, and figures from the technology industry, with delegates from more than 55 countries in attendance.
The gathering reflects growing alarm within the industry over threats ranging from artificial intelligence to declining theater attendance and the dominance of streaming platforms and social media over audience attention.
The billion-dollar pledge
Macron explained that the funds would go toward creating what has been named the “Lumière Partnership”, an initiative dedicated to supporting the image sector and cultural sovereignty, while calling for a new form of “multilateralism” to defend cinema against the pressures of AI and streaming platforms.
On the French side, the money will be channeled through Bpifrance, the national public investment bank, which has backed the country’s cultural and creative industries since 2020 and has already fast-tracked nearly 150 companies through its French Touch plan, working alongside the CNC.
The new funding envelope is expected to combine equity investments, dedicated support for research and creative innovation, and co-financing mechanisms designed to share risk with banks and private investors.
South Korea’s side of the commitment was formalized through a joint declaration on a global film and video industry investment cooperation initiative, under which the two countries will together channel a combined one billion euros into their film and video sectors.
Ahead of the summit, Korean officials had signaled a roughly comparable national commitment of their own, underscoring that the headline figure represents a genuinely shared effort rather than a one-sided pledge.
What Macron and Lee said
Opening the summit, Macron framed the moment as a turning point for an industry under siege. In his remarks and in an op-ed published for Variety, he argued that
“France and South Korea have taken different paths, but both have shown that openness to the world can strengthen… a distinctive creative culture.”
CNC president Gaëtan Bruel echoed the French leader’s call, citing Macron’s dictum that the moment demands nothing less than “multilateralism for the moving image” to preserve both the art and the commerce of cinema.
Lee Jae-myung, delivering the opening address as co-chair, struck a similar note about safeguarding creative independence in an era of algorithmic disruption. “Independent cinema is important for the future” Lee said, describing it as the guarantee of the industry’s sustainable growth and a wellspring of new imagination, and pointing to the value of a robust springboard for local content to reach global streaming platforms.
Korea’s cultural diplomacy on full display
The summit doubled as a showcase for South Korea’s expanding soft power.
Beyond the plenary sessions, Lee was scheduled to chair a roundtable on film and video with executives from CJ ENM, Naver, Netflix, the Motion Picture Association and Mediawan, focused on how regional and global players can grow the content industry sustainably together.
CJ Group vice chair Miky Lee, a pioneer of Korean cultural exports, joined the president’s delegation, with the Korean government reportedly making a considerable effort to secure her presence at the gathering of global content-industry heavyweights.
The visit forms part of a broader state trip, during which Lee is also set to hold meetings tied to a roughly 800 billion won investment framework spanning the next five years.
Commentators noted that the bilateral event, held as France and South Korea mark 140 years of diplomatic relations, positions Seoul as a broker between Western capital and Asian creative talent, aligning the country’s digital-entertainment strength with the heritage of European cinema.
Why it matters
The Lumière Summit’s billion-dollar commitment arrives at a moment when the traditional economics of cinema — box office revenue, theatrical windows, national funding models — are being reshaped by generative AI, shifting viewing habits and the global reach of streaming giants.
By pairing France’s decades-old system of public film support with South Korea’s newly won cultural export power, symbolized by hits like Parasite and the global rise of K-pop, the two governments are betting that a coordinated, cross-border fund can do what national subsidies alone increasingly cannot: keep independent and mid-budget cinema commercially viable in a platform-dominated world.
Whether other nations join the “Lumière Partnership” in the coming months may determine if Monday’s announcement becomes a genuine multilateral framework or remains a bilateral gesture between two of world cinema’s most storied and most rapidly rising industries.
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