TCCF: Series Mania, TAICCA Jointly Launch ‘Serial Bridges’ Workshop To Strengthen Europe-Asia Co-Production

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Marco Mueller, the veteran film festival curator and director, is set to launch a new festival and market in Macau. It will have its first edition in January. The Asia-Europe Young Cinema Festival, running Jan.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief EST Media, the Asian-focused film and video group, hatched by Jaeson Ma and former Vice Media executive Eric Tu, is now diversifying into publishing. It is launching EST Articles under its Eastern Standard Times journalism banner. The digital-only publication is “dedicated to exploring the voices and stories of the Asian and Asian diaspora communities through written medium to long-form, in-depth articles,” EST Media said.

Disney+ has dropped a teaser trailer for BTS Monuments: Beyond The Star, an eight-part documentary series about the global K-pop superstars, as well as announcing a launch date of December 20. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Veteran actor Ciaran Hinds and Odessa Young have joined Euphoria star Jacob Elordi in the cast of premium Australian miniseries “The Narrow Road to the Deep North.” Production is now under way. An adaptation of the Booker Prize-winning novel by Richard Flanaghan, the five-part series is love story set against the backdrop of World War II. Production is by Curio Pictures with Prime Video releasing the title in Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

As Deadline revealed exclusively on Monday, Netflix‘s hit seriesWednesday will be moving locations, with the upcoming second season filming in Ireland.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Modhaus, a K-pop platform embracing blockchain for fan engagement, has successfully raised over $8 million in a Series A funding round. The investment was led by Sfermion, a U.S. venture capital firm with expertise in metaverse and Web3 technologies.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Australian and New Zealand indie distributor Umbrella Entertainment will launch Brollie, a free of charge, ad-supported streaming service later this month. It will lean on Umbrella’s library of classic content and claims to be the first free streaming platform specializing in Australian film and TV content.Brollie will launch on Nov. 23 with over 300 titles including: “Babadook” (dir.

Wednesday season 2 is coming soon!

Michaela Zee “Wednesday” is moving production from Romania to Ireland for Season 2, and is tentatively scheduled to start shooting in April, Variety has confirmed. The eight-episode first season, which originally debuted last November on Netflix, was shot in Romania from September 2021 to March 2022.

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix‘s reigning most popular series, Wednesday, is headed to a new locale. The upcoming second season of the Addams Family offshoot will be filmed in Ireland, sources tell Deadline. Details are still being firmed up, but I hear start of production is tentatively slated for late April.

Stephen Sanchez has shared details of 2024 UK and European tour – find out how to buy tickets below.The Nashville singer-songwriter’s ‘The Troubadour Takes Europe Tour’ will take in shows at Bristol’s SWX, London’s KOKO and Manchester’s New Century Hall between February 12 and 14 before other stops in major European cities.Tickets go on general sale at this Friday (November 10) at 9am GMT here. A fan pre-sale is already open for select dates.The news follows the release of Sanchez’s debut album ‘Angel Face’.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Adele Lim, the screenwriter behind “Crazy Rich Asians” and Disney’s “Raya and the Last Dragon” animation, says that the opportunities for Asian filmmakers are growing as Hollywood is becoming more receptive to international talent. “[In Hollywood] I felt that I was disadvantaged, coming from Malaysia. It is not the cultural nexus,” said Lim, whose infancy was in Malaysia, before her family moved to the U.S.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “My Stand-In,” an action drama that starts shooting imminently, is a new Thai-language original series for Chinese streaming platform iQiyi. Fitting the booming ‘Boys Love’ genre, the series is a screen adaptation of a hit Chinese-language web novel “Stand-In Ship” written by Shui Qiancheng. The underlying novel has garnered over a billion readers on platforms including Weibo and iQiyi Novels.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Series Mania Institute, the first school entirely dedicated to series, and Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA), Wednesday announced launch next year of Serial Bridges, a workshop event, in France and Taiwan. The first workshop will begin in March at Series Mania (Mar. 15-21, 2023, 2024) in Lille, France, and conclude at the Taiwan Creative Content Fest in November 2024. The Serial Bridges workshop is open to six writer-producer duos with a series project.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief TAICCABOSSAs Taiwan seeks for creative, industrial and political reasons to make a bigger mark for itself on the international stage, its Taiwan Creative Content Fest is diversifying, expanding and making greater efforts at cross-border outreach. Homme Tsai, chair of industry support body TAICCA spoke outline the event’s strategy and novelties in a conversation with Variety. What are the objectives of the Taiwan Creative Content Fest? The TCCF is an international event for content licensing and project investment.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Warner Bros. Discovery, Taiwan Mobile and the Taiwan Creative Content Agency have signed a multi-year memorandum of understanding to create and distribute Taiwanese original content locally and across international markets. The MOU, signed in advance of next week’s TCCF event, combines the expertise and reach of the three companies to develop, produce and distribute local IP and content for both local and global audiences.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor In “Familiar,” Berlinale Golden Bear-winning director Călin Peter Netzer follows Dragoş Binder, a film director, as he delves into the murky secrets of his family, and tries to exorcise the trauma of his childhood by making a film about it. Beta Cinema is handling world sales for the film, which has its world premiere this month at Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn, Estonia. In the film, Dragoş is trying to understand how his family were able to leave Romania in the early 80s, during the most oppressive period of Nicolae Ceausescu’s rule.

Japan has dominated this year’s Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA), with German filmmaker Wim Wenders’ latest Tokyo-set pic and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car follow-up taking the top prizes. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Two films from Japan, Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days” and Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” won the top prizes at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards on Friday. Multiple other honors went to films from Korea and Kazakhstan. The 16th edition of the APSA Awards was held on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia and recognized films from eight countries. “Perfect Days,” a gentle comedy drama about a toilet cleaner in Tokyo finding happiness in the everyday, premiered in Cannes and more recently was selected as Japan’s Oscar contender and as the opening title of the Tokyo International Film Festival.

EXCLUSIVE: The Berlin-based Erich Pommer Institute (EPI) has unveiled the 15 European producers selected for the third edition of its female leadership programme Series’ Women.