Tokyo, TCCF & QCinema: A Tale Of Three Cities Going Global

Nov 21, 2024

In November, I inadvertently worked my way down the Pacific Rim, covering film festivals and markets in Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. Three very different industries, with very different issues and market conditions on the ground, but all communicating the same message – that they’re open to international collaboration and building bridges across the region and further beyond. Read on to find out more…

TIFFCOM: Japan Continues To Branch Out

Even Japan, with its decades long dependence on its local market, is talking about international expansion, with a focus on driving up exports, exploring co-productions and licensing its huge stores of IP. Another drive is to attract international productions to the country after two seasons of Tokyo Vice, which filmed in Tokyo and the mountainous Nagano prefecture, proved that this could be done.

Japan has long had a strong cultural influence on the rest of Asia – multiple generations have grown up with Japanese food, fashion, music, manga and anime, and now the rest of the world seems to be catching on. As Hollywood has cooled on China, it has warmed up to Japanese culture with award-winning shows like Shogun (not filmed in Japan, however), and while Netflix may not be spending as much on local-language content in Japan as it is in Korea, it’s still a priority territory for the streamer. There’s definitely a Japan wave starting to form behind the Korean wave, which may have already peaked.

TIFFCOM, the contents market that runs alongside Tokyo International Film Festival, was packed full of presentations by traditionally conservative Japanese studios and broadcasters outlining their plans for international expansion, while the local industry talked excitedly about the North American ambitions of leading local studio Toho and its recent acquisition of US anime distributor GKids. Meanwhile, a younger, more outward-looking generation of Japanese indie producers is starting to experiment with international co-production.

Facilitating all of this are a raft of government initiatives – a new location incentive managed by VIPO that has already approved ten international productions, co-production funds from the Agency for Cultural Affairs (Bunka-cho) and a recently minted Japan-Italy co-production agreement.

Of course, there are practical reasons for the change in strategy – Japan’s population is shrinking and while it currently has the second biggest theatrical and TV market in East Asia, its traditional domestic self-reliance no longer makes sense. It does feel like the door is open for conversations with Japanese producers, networks and studios, and unlike in China, there’s unlikely to be a sudden policy shift to freeze everyone out.

TCCF: Taiwan Confirms Focus On Commercial Projects

Then on to Taipei for Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF), a project pitching and content market event hosted by Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA). With Taiwan’s growing expertise in producing high-end series, it’s not suprising that this is more of a TV than a film event, but feature films were also being pitched and sold in the market. Now in its fifth year, the event moved from the Songshan Cultural Park, a converted Japanese colonial era factory surrouned by landscaped grounds, to the somewhat more sterile Taipei Nangang Exhibition Centre. The organisers said the move was necessary as the event needed more space (for exhibition booths, seminars and pitching sessions) and a more business-oriented venue.

Aesthetics aside, the event was busy with more than 60 projects and pieces of IP being pitched across film, TV, animation and documentary, along with the market and a packed schedule of seminars and presentations. Despite clashing with the American Film Market (AFM), it seems to be finding its place in a crowded autumn schedule, although some guests would prefer it to take place at the same time as Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival and Golden Horse Awards in late November.

The event’s appeal is of course tied to TAICCA’s push to position Taiwan as an international co-production partner and Chinese-language alternative to an increasingly closed and complicated mainland China market. Taiwan’s government has money for the creative industries – it funds both projects and companies that are working with Taiwanese partners – but has moved away from investing in international arthouse films towards “a wider variety of films with market potential” under it’s TICP 2.0 co-production initiative, revamped earlier this year.

The new TICP is open to qualifying co-productions with all countries and regions, but TAICCA hasn’t announced which projects are being funded since the changes were announced in January this year. I was told that seven projects have been approved since January, but details can only be disclosed “upon the completion of contract signing and official fund allocation”. Hopefully this list will soon be made public so international producers have a better understanding of what TAICCA is interested in.

Singapore’s IMDA also appears to be shifting towards funding more commercial projects, while the Philippines’ FDCP has dropped its fund that focuses on Southeast Asian co-productions. During TCCF, Malaysian and Thai government agencies were also talking about launching co-production programmes, but had a similar message – that government funding should function as a trigger to attract private investment and finance mainstream projects, rather than subsidise indie filmmaking. That’s a nice idea, but the experience of countries with a longer public subsidy history (South Korea, most of Europe) reveals that the private sector rarely invests in the training and upskilling that is needed to keep an industry competitive.

**TCCF Market at Nangang Exhibition Centre**

QCINEMA: Philippines Combines Genre & Arthouse

And finally to Manila where we were dodging typhoons to attend Quezon City’s QCinema Project Market (QPM) and Asian Next Wave Film Forum, relatively new events running alongside the 12-year old QCinema International Film Festival.

The largest city within the vast Metro Manila metropolitan area, Quezon City is home to 3.3 million people and around 70% of the local film and TV industry, including the studios of GMA and ABS-CBN. There’s a festive feel in the air in Manila at this time of year as the city’s malls are festooned with Christmas decorations and the city is gearing up for the Metro Manila Film Festival, the biggest launchpad for mainstream Filipino movies during the year.

QCinema operates more at the indie end of the industry – the festival screens arthouse favourites from this year’s Cannes, Berlin, Venice and other festivals, and QPM selected 20 indie projects – 13 from the Philippines and seven from the rest of Southeast Asia – that are looking for international co-production partners, distribution and sales. The line-up included new projects from Filipino filmmakers such as Martika Ramirez Escobar (Lenor Will Never Die) and Kenneth Dagatan (In My Mother’s Skin), while the Southeast Asia section included projects from Myanmar, Cambodia, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam [see full line-up here].

Under the leadership of Quezon City Film Commission executive director (and former FDCP head) Liza Diño and Manet Dayrit, who heads Quezon City Film Foundation, the event is finding its own solution to the ‘art versus commerce’ and ‘how to build a sustainable industry’ conundrums.

Much of the talk at the event was around how to combine elements of genre and arthouse in indie filmmaking to come up with more commercially viable projects that still have international festival appeal. QCinema is also planning to launch a genre filmmaking workshop for Southeast Asian projects in Boracay next year. It’s a sensible strategy, no doubt inspired by US indie pioneers A24, and one that the Quezon City government plans to back up with incentives as it makes a bid to become a UNESCO Creative City of Film.

QCinema is also hoping that this strategy will bring more continuity to Southeast Asian co-production funding, but there are no guarantees in a world where governments and support policies are constantly in flux. Speaking on a QCinema panel, one high-profile Philippines producer, who has always financed her films locally, echoed the sentiments of many when she said “I have trust issues” when it comes to accessing government funding. Indie films can take several years to finance and public funding policy in Southeast Asia seems to go through massive shifts every few years. Sometimes the private money, when you can find it, seems like an easier bet.

IN THE TRADES:

Streamlined by Liz Shackleton

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Streamlined by Liz Shackleton

Tokyo, TCCF & QCinema: A Tale Of Three Cities Going Global

TIFFCOM: Japan Continues To Branch Out

TCCF: Taiwan Confirms Focus On Commercial Projects

QCINEMA: Philippines Combines Genre & Arthouse

IN THE TRADES:

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