The 22nd EBS International Documentary Festival (hereinafter referred to as ‘EIDF2025’), hosted by EBS (President Kim Yoo-yeol) and sponsored by Goyang Special City, revealed the festival's direction and the entire lineup of films during an official press conference held on July 29 at Club On Air in Mapo-gu, Seoul.
EIDF2025 will take place from August 25 for a week, featuring 62 films from 35 countries divided into 9 sections. This is a larger scale than last year, and offline events are being prepared more abundantly than ever. The EIDF Secretariat stated that, like this year's slogan ‘Capture the New Wave’, it aims to be a film festival that can adapt to trends.
During the press conference, Kim Kwang-ho, the executive committee chair of EIDF, introduced the main concept of EIDF2025, stating, “We have structured the program with more experimental and multi-layered works, contemplating how documentaries can capture the flow of the times and how they can view society.”
In addition to screening programs for the public, EIDF2025 is also leading efforts to support independent documentaries through the industry and seek ways for domestic documentary directors and independent producers to coexist.
Launched in 2004, EIDF is the longest-running documentary film festival in Korea, consistently showcasing outstanding domestic and international documentary works that highlight the spirit of the times and a sense of challenge in documentaries. Notably, it is the only festival in Korea that combines terrestrial broadcasting (EBS 1TV) with offline theater screenings, broadening the connection between documentaries and audiences.
#. A glance at trending films from international festivals and documentary trends by country
EIDF2025 will meet audiences with more challenging and abundant documentaries than ever. The three sections ‘World Cinema Focus’, ‘Asia Currents’, and ‘New Korean Wave’ are structured to reflect recent documentary trends by dividing the producing countries into global, Asian, and Korean categories, unlike the previous EIDF which was organized by subject matter. By encompassing these three sections, one can grasp the position of Korean documentaries within global trends.
Above all, EIDF2025 focused on the most important banner of the year, ‘Expanding the Boundaries of Documentary’. The newly established ‘Creative Documentary’ aims to explore the limitless possibilities of documentaries through films that borrow elements from AI, animation, and drama grammar. Works that have garnered attention at prestigious international film festivals are also included, such as ‘The Soundtrack of the Coup’ in the ‘Creative Documentary’ section, which received a Special Jury Award at the 40th Sundance Film Festival, and ‘No Other Land’ in the ‘Masters’ section, which won the Best Documentary Feature at the 97th Academy Awards.
Additionally, EIDF2025 collaborates with festival partners to introduce various documentary works. ‘Art and Culture’ is supported by the Korea Arts and Culture Education Service (ARTE), and ‘Short Documentary Collection’ is created with the support of Hyundai Home Shopping, conveying the social and cultural values that documentaries can provide.
EIDF2025 is striving towards a broader goal of ‘popularizing documentary culture and industry’ beyond just ‘popularizing documentaries’, and will be held from August 25 to 31, with more details available on the EIDF website.
[Son Jin-a, MK Sports Reporter]
