– Students from 25 countries participated in the largest edition to date, engaging in global cultural exchange amid Budapest’s rich historical and multicultural heritage
– Screening and awards ceremony featured K-Food dishes made with Jongga Kimchi, bringing film and food together in a cultural celebration
SEOUL, South Korea, Aug. 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The 6th DAESANG Eat & Travel Film Festival (E.T.F.F.), a global university student smartphone film festival hosted annually by Daesang Group, concluded successfully with a screening and awards ceremony in Budapest, Hungary, on August 16.
Now in its sixth year, DAESANG E.T.F.F. is a global cultural exchange program reflecting the Group’s core value of “Respect,” bringing together university students from diverse cultural backgrounds to travel, collaborate, and create short films centered on the theme of food. This year, the festival expanded its reach beyond Asia to Europe and brought together students from a record 25 countries, further establishing the festival as a global platform for cultural exchange.
Budapest was selected as the festival’s first European host city for its rich history and cultural diversity. As a major Central European city where Eastern and Western cultures have long intersected, Budapest provided participants from around the world with opportunities to experience different cultures, engage with one another, and find inspiration for their filmmaking.
The 48 university students from 25 countries across Asia, North America, Latin America, and Europe were selected through a highly competitive process and divided into eight teams of six. From August 4 to 16, the teams explored Budapest together. Over nearly two weeks, participants experienced local culture and cuisine while handling every stage of the filmmaking process themselves, from script development and filming to editing and promotion. Each team produced a smartphone short film of up to five minutes on the theme of food.
The completed films were unveiled at a screening held in Budapest on August 16. At the screening, guests were offered a selection of dishes made with products from Jongga, Daesang Group’s global kimchi brand, including kimchimari guksu, kimchi jeon, kimchi bossam, kimchimari gogijjim, and kimchi gimbap. The event offered audiences an opportunity to experience kimchi, an iconic K-Food enjoyed worldwide, in a variety of ways. Bringing film and food together in a cultural celebration, the event was enthusiastically received by attendees.
One audience member at the screening said, “It was a special experience to enjoy kimchi dishes while watching films made by university students from around the world. I was particularly impressed by kimchi bossam, as the savory flavor of the meat complemented the rich flavor of the kimchi.”
An awards ceremony followed the screening. The Grand Prize winner was selected based on evaluations by two professional judges, Um Tae-hwa, director of Concrete Utopia, and Professor Park Ji-hoon of the Seoul Institute of the Arts, as well as votes from the audience. Awards were also presented for Best Film, Best Promotion, Best Actor, and Best Participation.
Team “ONEderful” won the Grand Prize for Colors of Budapest and received KRW 10 million in prize money. Director Um Tae-hwa, who served as a judge, praised the film, saying, “The film stands out for its clever direction, capturing the fleeting moment of falling in love through vivid colors. In particular, the striking contrast between the green backdrop and the red rose brilliantly visualizes the characters’ emotions.”
Shim Hee-jun of Korea University, a member of the Grand Prize-winning team “ONEderful,” said, “Rather than focusing on discrimination and hatred, we wanted to portray the process of respecting and understanding one another in a warm and heartfelt way through the themes of color and love.”
The award-winning films and a behind-the-scenes video documenting the participants’ filmmaking process will be released on the official DAESANG Eat & Travel Film Festival YouTube channel.
Choi Sung-soo, CEO of Daesang Holdings, said, “We successfully concluded our first European edition of the film festival. It was especially meaningful to see consumers from around the world enjoying a variety of kimchi dishes, reaffirming kimchi’s growing prominence on the global stage. Going forward, we will continue to support young people around the world as they develop into globally minded individuals who embody the value of ‘Respect.'”
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SOURCE Daesang Corporation
