This December, Singapore hosts the Asia TV Forum (ATF) Market at the Marina Bay Sands and the 34th Singapore International Film Festival.
A lot of creatives from the television and film industries are flying to the Lion City to immerse themselves in Asia’s leading entertainment content market.
Filipino filmmakers, animators, and producers are pitching their projects and screening their works for international decision makers.
Asia and Europe are partnering in the ATF x TTB Animation Lab & Pitch 2023. Ties That Bind (TTB), one of the leading training programs for European-Asian co-production, is in charge of the lab. This initiative targets animation producers and projects from Asia and Europe, pushing for co-production possibilities and grasping the animation market.
When going into a film market, the most important thing is to know your buyers. Based on ATF 2022, the top genres in demand for ATF buyers are: Series, feature film, action/adventure, family, and animation (kids).
Ella Arcangel: Ballad of Tooth and Claw from director Mervin Malonzo and producer Emmanuel Angeles is the animated series that will pitched against projects from Taiwan, Indonesia, Spain, Japan, Singapore, Germany, Serbia, and Poland.
Created by Julius Villanueva and produced by Twenty Manila, Ella tells her plight as a little girl battling supernatural creatures vis-a-vis the government’s war on drugs. Will the real monster be discovered?
The ATF x Beach House Pictures Scripted Pitch 2023 has Wilfredo Manalang pitching 14 days, produced by the Singaporean company Hazelnut Media, and Jun Lana for Web of Lies from the IdeaFirst Company.
The 14 Days logline goes: “An overseas worker from Dubai returns home to the Philippines to see his ailing mother but due to the nationwide quarantine, he is sent to an isolated facility for 14 days wherein he will discover horror that will challenge his will to survive.”
Wilfredo Manalang who recently co-produced Blue Room and Plan 75 is back in his director’s hat. “I penned the pilot of this script during the pandemic initially as a personal outlet for my emotions,” he recalls. “When I shared it with my producer friend, Sreyashii, a few months ago, I never expected her to embrace the project so enthusiastically. Her suggestion to submit it was met with disbelief, considering the competitive landscape with seasoned professionals,” adds the founder of FUSEE, a content creation company.
The semi-finals Live Pitch on Stage will be open to the public on Dec. 7 at 3 pm at the Marina Bay Sands.
At the SGIFF on Dec. 6, a talk entitled, States and Stakes: A Close-up of Film Industries in Asia will have FDCP chairman and CEO Tirso Cruz III, Joey Reyes, and Monster Jimenez as panelists together with Park Heeseong, Chris Tan, Jeremy Chua, and Benjamin Illos at Lasalle FlexiSpace.
The group will have a dialogue with film industry professionals residing in Asia. It aims to recognize new milestones and runways, roadblocks and possibilities, for filmmaking.