▲ Gyeonggi Provincial Government Office
Gyeonggi Province has fired back just a day after Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok criticized the partial scaleback of the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival due to financial conditions, calling the move a "breach of contract."
An official from Gyeonggi Province stated on September 20, "This project was scaled back because of problems such as a high-cost operational structure heavily reliant on provincial funding, poor audience performance relative to the budget injected, and an excessive level of support compared to other local governments."
According to the province, this year's budget for the project is 4 billion won.
Among this, provincial funds account for 3.1 billion won, representing 77.5% of the total revenue.
In contrast, self-generated revenues such as ticket sales, sponsorships, and partnerships amount to 111 million won, or 2.8% of the total revenue.
The number of attendees was tallied at 13,760 last year, consisting of 6,663 paid visitors and 7,097 free visitors.
When compared against the budget, this breaks down to 290,000 won spent per attendee, and 600,000 won per paid attendee.
Additionally, while the provincial funding supported for this film festival amounts to 3.1 billion won, the total budget provided by Seoul for 15 film festivals stands at a mere 1.03 billion won.
In the case of Incheon's Diaspora Film Festival, this year's budget is only 600 million won.
The provincial official said, "The DMZ Film Festival practically lacks a foundation for financial independence and incurs 1.4 billion won annually just in labor costs, meaning excessive organization maintenance expenses are being poured in regardless of performance. Furthermore, separate from the DMZ Film Festival, the province is providing a total of 100 million won to six small-scale film festivals through the Gyeonggi Content Agency, so a review is necessary from the perspectives of support scale and equity."
The day before in Gwangju, Democratic Party leader Kim met with filmmakers and pointed out regarding the scaleback of the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival, "In a sense, it is a breach of contract," adding, "Responsible public entities have committed an act of moral and good-faith destruction. In that respect, I think there is a problem."
Previously, party leader Kim has been at odds with Gyeonggi Governor Choo Mi-ae—a hardliner within the Democratic Party—criticizing her after she directly targeted President Lee Jae-myung and mentioning that he would examine the costs of Governor Choo's election consulting.
Regarding the controversy over spending a significant portion of election expenses on a specific political consulting firm during the June 3 local elections, Governor Choo's side explained, "It is entirely common sense to conduct election work by contracting with a firm where data and know-how have been accumulated."
(Photo: Provided by Gyeonggi Province, Yonhap News)
(Photo: Provided by Gyeonggi Province, Yonhap News)
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