American entertainment firm EST N8 announced on October 8 that it bought worldwide sales rights to the Pilgrims animated film. It’s the first animated feature on the company’s slate. Pilgrims made its market debut in South Korea at the Busan International Film Festival Asian Content and Film Market, where sales agents pitched the title to foreign buyers [1].
Busan Market Launch for Animated Film Pilgrims
Sales and release plans are led by three EST N8 team members: Jan Paul Villanueva, who manages global acquisitions; Cathy Ni, who oversees U.S. sales; and Shams Pasha, working on marketing [2]. The company formed when EST Studios and N8 joined forces to finance and sell Asian films abroad [1]. It’s building a fresh roster for overseas buyers [2].
Sophie Changhui Shi, head of studios at EST N8, negotiated the deal with Hugh Cha, co-CEO of Desert Bloom Pictures, who acted on behalf of Seoul-based 21 Studios during talks. The agreement adds to EST N8’s Busan market catalog. That lineup features the Thai horror debut Tame from B-EST Pictures, Rezwan Shahriar Sumit’s Rotterdam winner Master, and Dean Colin Marcial’s Manila-set crime thriller Jaguar. The company also sells the Taiwanese action title Dead End by Chan Chun-hao and Mariko Tetsuya’s Dear Stranger. Those films join earlier company credits like the Oscar-shortlisted documentary Hidden Letters, Toronto selection K-Pops!, and Bhutan’s submission The Monk and the Gun [2].
Shi said the company chose the film to enter feature animation. “The film brings together Kim Choyeop’s bestselling source material, Heo Pyoungkang’s nearly two decades in Japanese animation, and a voice cast with internationally recognized credits,” Shi said. “It represents exactly what EST N8 stands for: bringing bold, elevated Asian storytelling to global audiences, and we are thrilled to introduce it as our first animated feature” [2]. Handling the Pilgrims animated film lets the distributor test world demand for Korean animated stories [4].
Adapting Choyeop Kim’s Short Story
The story adapts a piece from Choyeop Kim’s collection If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light, a bestselling volume that reached 400,000 copies in print as the author’s first feature film adaptation. The village has removed grief. Every citizen must leave home upon turning 18 to spend a mandatory year on Earth, where Sophie’s friend Daisy vanished without explanation. Sophie’s forgotten memories spark the central mystery [1].
Sophie’s memories expose unsettling truths hidden beneath the quiet surface of her town. Her discovery forces her to ask whether a life without pain is worth having without genuine love [1]. “’Pilgrims’ asks a universal question through a distinctly Korean science-fiction story: Is a life without pain worth living if it also means a life without love?” Shi said. The choice doesn’t give Sophie an easy way out [2].
Seoul-based 21 Studios made the film under CEO Huh Kyubum, a former venture capitalist with Union Investment Partners who funded Korean entertainment content. Huh wanted to protect the prose. He said the team balanced Kim’s personal storytelling with an expansive visual scale designed for movie theaters while noting that the film’s honors at BIAF and Annecy proved Sophie’s choice speaks across cultures [2]. Chinese reporting on taicike.com noted that Golden Clover Heads to international screens, celebrating author Kim Choyeop as Golden Grass Leaf [5].
Direction and Character Art
Director Heo Pyoungkang spent nearly twenty years in Japanese animation before directing Pilgrims. Trade coverage on taicike.com listed the filmmaker as Director Xu Pingkang, highlighting his technical work on Masaaki Yuasa’s animated feature The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl and his role as series director on the Netflix disaster anime Japan Sinks: 2020. He directed units in Tokyo [1]. That background shaped his craft [3].
Heo framed Sophie’s path as a choice to embrace hardship. “This film portrays the journey of those who willingly embrace pain to choose love,” Heo said. “I would describe it as a work that asks how we can accept this imperfect world we live in and learn to love one another” [2]. Yomimono reviewed Japanese-language reporting on the director’s career, highlighting how his Tokyo animation experience helped him pace the film’s quiet, reflective scenes [3].
Character designer We Hyun-song led the art team that shaped the look of the film. We brought valuable experience from major animation studios, having worked on Pixar’s Inside Out 2 and served as concept artist on KPop Demon Hunters. In Pilgrims, the visual style contrasts the clean, sterile calm of Sophie’s home village with the gritty, unfamiliar streets of Earth where young adults live for a year [2]. We’s drawings give Sophie and Daisy subtle facial traits that show their inner growth as past memories return. Visual storytelling lets their faces carry weight without relying on heavy dialogue [5].
Voice Cast and Indie Soundtrack
Three screen actors lead the voice cast: Kim Hyang-gi, Park Ji-hu, and Lee Joo-young [1]. Taicike transcribed the performers as Kim Hyang-ki, Park Chi-hoo, and Lee Joo-young in its Asian coverage [5]. Park gained international fame starring in the Netflix zombie hit All of Us Are Dead before joining Concrete Utopia, while Kim led Along with the Gods and Lee starred in Itaewon Class and Broker [2].
Korean indie musician Hwang Soyoon composed the score. She leads the indie rock band Se So Neon and wrote the single “Smoke Sprite” with BTS member RM, bringing a warm indie feel to the film. Her tracks give the scenes a quiet mood that doesn’t overpower the actors [2]. Trade reporting on taicike.com credited the music to Huang Zhaoyun, noting her background in the Korean indie music scene [5].
The music and voices create a soft rhythm across the film [4]. The actors kept their delivery grounded rather than leaning on loud stage habits. Sound designers didn’t rely on cartoon tricks, keeping the audio focused on the friends’ bond [5].
Festivals Honor Animated Film Pilgrims Before Cinema Release
Festival runs built early momentum. Pilgrims won the Technical Award at the 2025 Bucheon International Animation Festival (BIAF) before traveling to France for its European premiere in the Animated Thrills & Chills strand at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival [1]. Distributor Special Movie City then handled domestic theatrical distribution in South Korea [2].
Foreign demand for mature Asian animated stories has grown in cinema and streaming markets, opening paths for projects like the Sekiro: No Defeat anime series [2]. For an indie film like Pilgrims, teaming up with an overseas sales agent helps reach foreign distributors [1]. EST N8’s sales push gives the movie the network it needs to meet theater buyers in North America and Europe [2].
Big releases like the Chiikawa film prove that animated titles can draw huge box office crowds [1]. But the Pilgrims animated film follows a different festival-oriented path [2]. The team can’t rely only on home theater tickets, making foreign deals in Busan key to its future [4].
- ONLINE NEWS Anime News Network. (2026, October 19). EST N8 Picks Up Korean-Animated Film Pilgrims for Worldwide Sales. Anime News Network. [Article Link]
- ONLINE NEWS Ramachandran, N. (2026, October 9). Annecy Sci-Fi Animation ‘Pilgrims,’ From ‘Japan Sinks: 2020’ Director Heo Pyoungkang, Lands at EST N8. Variety. [Article Link]
- WEBSITE Yomimono. (2026, October 19). EST N8 Takes Worldwide Sales Rights To Korean Animated Feature Pilgrims. Yomimono. [Article Link]
- WEBSITE Stroud, E. (2026, October 8). Annecy Sci-Fi Animation ‘Pilgrims,’ From ‘Japan Sinks: 2020’ Director Heo Pyoungkang, Lands at EST N8. GMF WORLD. [Article Link]
- WEBSITE Taicike. (2026, October 9). 《Pilgrims》(Pilgrims) signs overseas sales, the sci-fi story of Golden Clover Heads to International Screens. taicike.com. [Article Link]
