The 21st EBS International Documentary Festival, the country's oldest documentary festival, takes place Aug. 19 to Aug. 25, when it will introduce a slew of well-made documentaries from around the world.

Featuring 53 documentaries from 32 countries, this year's festival is being held under its slogan: "Bridge the Times." The slogan embodies the hope that humanity can bridge diverse values and cultures to strive for coexistence, said Kim Dong-gwan, director of EIDF, at a press conference on Tuesday.

The annual documentary festival will kick off with an opening ceremony at the EBS headquarters in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province.

The documentaries, categorized into seven thematic sections including social conflict, history and natural environment, will be screened at Cinecube Gwanghwamun and Megabox Baekseok Bellacita. The documentaries will also be broadcast on EBS 1TV and streamed on D-BOX, EIDF's streaming platform exclusively for documentaries.

Eleven selected works will be evaluated throughout the festival for the Festival Choice competition. The top award carries a cash prize of 10 million won ($7,200).

Kim said he aims to appeal to the public with the festival's documentaries.

"As a film festival held for the public, we made the conscious effort to present documentaries with mass appeal," said Kim.

"There are numerous documentaries with artistic value that the public often struggles to comprehend. This year, we deliberately aimed to show documentaries that are more accessible and enjoyable for everyone. We plan to continue this approach in the future," Kim added.

The festival organizers added they plan to strengthen production support projects for documentaries to bolster the documentary sector.

"While there are numerous film festivals in our country, we have weak production support projects," said Hyoung Gunny, the directing producer of EIDF 2024.

"Documentaries are not widely viewed, yet they are of great importance. Although guiding them toward commercialization or marketing can be challenging, we aim to advance the industrialization of documentaries and support Korean documentaries to perform well in international markets," he added.