Golden Horse Film Project Market Sets Bumper 64-Title Edition

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Tiger Stripes,” the Malaysian coming-of-age, body horror film that debuted in Cannes’ Critics Week section has been set as the opening title for this year’s Singapore International Film Festival (Nov. 30 – Dec.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Some twenty aspiring film projects have been selected to participate in the inaugural edition of the Qcinema Project Market (Nov. 18-19) that this year represents and expansion of the QCinema Film Festival in The Philippines’ Quezon City. The selected titles include development projects by several of East Asia’s better known independent and art-house directors and projects.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Taiwanese actors King Jieh-wen and Hsueh Shih-ling and Indonesia’s Angga Yunanda are set to star in “Malice,” a multinational Asian thriller that will shoot next year. The film’s producers, actors and government backers presented the fully-assembled package to press and industry on Monday at the Busan International Film Festival. The film, pitched as “a road movie at sea,” is a dark tale of three men who put out to sea in search of a particular, large swordfish that had been rumored to have died out.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief EST N8, a recently-established finance, production and rights sales company, has added a Hong Kong remake of classic film “Tape” and the LGBT comedy-drama “ASOG” to its bulging sales slate at the AFCM market that accompanies the Busan Intenational Film Festival. “Tape” tells the story of three best friends who, following an event at a graduation party that transforms their lives, reunite 15 years later where a case of blackmail forces them to confront a terrible secret from their past. The original film starred Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Robert Sean Leonard and played at the Sundance, Toronto and Rotterdam festivals.In the Cantonese-language remake directed by Bizhan Tong, Selena Lee, Kenny Kwan, and Adam Pak play the contemporary characters while Mason Fung, Summer Chan, and Angus Yeung portray the characters’ younger versions. The script is written by Stephen Belber, Tong, Lee and Bonnie Lo, and is an adaptation of Belber’s own scripts from both the original film and stage play. The writers and director have significantly modernized the script to reflect advances in technology. Producers on the film include Tong, Lee and Belber.

Naman Ramachandran Celebrated Singaporean producer Jeremy Chua and emerging Philippines talent Rafael Manuel have teamed on “Filipinana,” a selection at the Busan International Film Festival‘s Asian Project Market this year. The film will follow 17-year-old girl Isabel, who spends her whole day teeing-up balls for golfers at a country club.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Seoul-based sales company Finecut has struck key Asian deals for the vigilante action movie “Brave Citizen.” In Korea, the film is presented by Content Wavve, one of the country’s leading OTT platforms and is headed for a Korean theatrical release on Oct. 25.Finecut has sealed deals with Kadokawa Plus for Japan, with Moviecloud for Taiwan and with Lumix Medi for Vietnam.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival is back after a one-year hiatus with a rich mix of Arabic and international titles launching into the Middle East and plenty of promising projects from Arab countries set to be unveiled to prospective partners at its CineGouna industry side. The event launched in 2017 by Egyptian telecom billionaire Naguib Sawiris – whose brother Samih built the El Gouna resort in a swathe of desert near the tourist town of Hurghada 250 miles south of Cairo – was put on pause in 2022 ostensibly due to the country’s economic crisis following five editions during which fest co-founder Amr Mansi and chief Intishal Al Timimi had managed to rapidly put El Gouna on the international festival map while also making it a favourite with the local crowd.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korean sales agency, Finecut has picked up international sales rights to dance drama film “Victory,” which it will launch during the Asian Contents & Film Market that sits alongside the Busan Film Festival. The film, currently in post-production, is an upcoming title by Park Beom-su, a director known for a promising debut film “Red Carpet” in 2014. The story of “Victory” is centered around a high-school dance duo and an underdog school soccer team on a remote island. Two girls initially create a cheerleading club to pursue their love for dance, but they soon find themselves passionately cheering for the soccer team, eventually becoming a source of support for the entire island. The film stars Lee Hye-ri, a member of K-pop girl group Girl’s Day, who has become a popular actor with roles in “Monstrum” and TV’s “Reply 1998,” and Park Se-wan (“Life Is Beautiful,” “6/45,” “Collectors”) as the two protagonists.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Feted in Busan this week as the Asian Filmmaker of the Year, Hong Kong superstar Chow Yun-fat bemoaned censorship in China for its impact on the film industry. “We have a lot of censorship requirements in mainland China. Scripts must go to many departments. So, we need [to portray] clear situations in scripts.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Anthony Chen (“The Breaking Ice”) is attached to direct and Shinho Lee to write “Sunset Park” for Barunson C&C, a film and TV production subsidiary of Barunson E&A, the Korean company that produced Oscar-winning hit “Parasite.” “Sunset Park” recounts a surprising journey in the U.S. made by a Korean father with his son’s room mate, after the man receives tragic news about his son.

reports Deadline. While no specific cast or plot details have been released, MindRiot’s Justin MacGregor and Jonathan Keasey will co-write the film while E. Brian Dobbins is set to co-produce.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief A clutch of Chinese movies released for the end of September holiday season dominated the global box office over the latest weekend. Mainland Chinese-produced films took first, third and fifth places across the planet, according to U.S.-based data service Comscore. Comscore shows “Under the Light,” which released only in mainland China, grossing an estimated $54 million between Friday and Sunday.

Dave Portnoy reportedly just splashed out a huge sum of money on real estate.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Turkey’s Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, the country’s top international film event, has been canceled due political pressure following a storm of controversy prompted by the presence of an explosive documentary in the lineup. The doc, titled “Decree” and directed by Nejla Demirci, is about the plight of a doctor and a teacher who were fired from their government jobs under a state of emergency declared after a failed attempted coup on July 15, 2016, in Turkey.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer The comedy community is just grateful to be nominated. Top professional funny people have weighed in on this week’s news that the annual Golden Globe awards have introduced two new categories, one of which will honor best performance in stand-up comedy on television.

So, filmmaker Gareth Edwards is doing the interview round for his latest sci-fi extravaganza, “The Creator,” starring John David Washington. It’s a movie heavily indebted to “Blade Runner,” “Apocalypse Now,” and even “Star Wars” (read our review here).

The 2024 Göteborg Film Festival will show an AI-altered version of Ingmar Bergman’s Persona with a new actor edited in. Another Persona will co-star 42-year-old Finnish actress Alma Pöysti as Elisabet Vogler, a role played in the 1966 arthouse classic by Liv Ullmann (now 84), as Deadline reports.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Equal numbers of Chinese and Japanese titles adorn the main competition section of the Toyo International Film Festival, which was announced on Wednesday – three each. Among the Chinese films is “Snow Leopard,” the last feature by the late Pema Tseden, and “Dwelling by the West Lake,” directed by Gu Xiaogang, the surprisingly inexperienced joint recipient of this year’s Kurosawa Award. The full competition with 15 titles, set to play between Oct. 23 and Nov.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Ryuji Otsuka and Huang Ji, the husband and wife, Japanese-Chinese directing duo behind “Stonewalling” and “Egg and Stone” have secured multi-national backing for their upcoming fourth film project “A Woman Builds.” The film will depict a Chinese woman forced to live apart from her Japanese husband and their daughter during the pandemic and learning to enjoy the newfound freedom of a pseudo single life. She finds a unique massage parlor to satisfy her sexual needs and decides to build a house back in her home village, despite her husband’s disapproval.

The American French Film Festival (TAFFF), which had been due to take place in L.A. from October 18 to 22, has been shelved due to the writers and actors strikes.