Bi Gan’s ‘A Short Story’ Sets North American Theatrical Release – Global Bulletin

CAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment) and Janet Yang Productions announced the second year of the Julia S. Gouw Short Film Challenge for Asian American and Pacific Islander Women and Non-Binary Filmmakers. The Challenge’s sophomore year kicks off with a Nov. 1st premiere, sponsored by AMC Theatres, where the four short films by year one’s winning filmmakers will be unveiled: 

EXCLUSIVE: Timothy Scott Bogart’s movie Spinning Gold about his music producer father, Neil Bogart, and the iconic label he built, Casablanca Records, will hit theaters on Friday, March 31, 2023.

Stowe Story Labs on Wednesday unveiled this year’s Stowe Launch fellows. This is the second year of the pilot program, which serves as Stowe Story Labs’ advanced development program for top emerging screenwriters and filmmakers.

EXCLUSIVE: Lionsgate is giving an Oscar-qualifying run for the psychological thriller, Alice, Darling, on Dec. 30 before the pic’s nationwide release in 2023.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Band of Brothers” writer Bruce McKenna is teaming with David Broyles (“Six”) and Nick Jones Jr. (“Yasuke”) to write and produce a limited TV series “Buffalo Rangers” about the 2nd Ranger Company, the only all-Black special operations combat unit in U.S. history. They were notable for their efforts in the Korean War. The series is being produced by South Korea-based Moving Pictures Company, which has a growing English-language slate. No broadcaster or streamer has been announced. Producing alongside Broyles, Jones and McKenna are Thomas Suh (through his production company Système D Entertainment), Paul Merryman (“The Outpost”), Debra Martin Chase (“Harriet,” CBS’s “The Equalizer”) and Jariko Denman (“The Outpost”), a retired master sergeant with 15 combat deployments.

Naman Ramachandran The U.K.’s BFI has revealed details of the National Lottery Audience Projects Fund, with £15 million ($16.9 million) available over three years to support the U.K. exhibition and distribution sector to grow audiences for U.K. independent film and XR/broader screen work. Applications, which open Nov. 4, are invited from organizations that are focused on increasing access and growing the engagement of audiences that are representative of the U.K. population. The fund will make awards of between £20,000 and £200,000 depending on the scope and reach of the project, with an upper limit of £500,000 for projects of “exceptional scale and ambition,” the BFI said in a statement. Eligible applicants will need experience of film distribution, film exhibition or audience development activities in the U.K. For research and development projects, applicants can apply for between £10,000 and £20,000.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Singapore has banned the release of “#LookAtMe,” a feature film by local director Ken Kwek. The InfoComm Media Development Authority said that the film exceeds film classification guidelines because it denigrates a religious community. Supposedly based in true events, the film depicts a man who is offended by a pastor who preaches against homosexuality, but whose behavior contradicts his teachings. The protagonist’s viral video about the aberrant priest lands him in jail, causing the man’s gay identical twin to fight for justice. “#LookAtMe,” premiered at the New York Asian Film Festival and local media report that the film has been selected for next month’s Singapore International Film Festival. But the IMDA ruling means that it cannot now be shown in any form in Singapore unless Kwek is successful with an appeal.

Disney has confirmed that it will release Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in French theaters on November 9. A question mark had been hanging over whether the movie would go to cinemas given France’s antiquated windowing system that puts, in Disney’s case, an initial 17-month lag between when a film hits theaters and when it can head to Disney Plus in the market.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Australia’s SLR Productions has announced production on season two of the award-winning original CGI animated series, “Space Nova” for ABC ME. The 15 x 22-minute season has received significant production funding from both Screen Australia and the Australian Children’s Television Foundation as well as development funding from ABC ME and Create NSW. “Space Nova” will be co-produced with Giggle Garage in Malaysia and distributed internationally by ZDF Studios, with ACTF representing the series across Australia and New Zealand. Targeting a six- to ten-year-old global audience, the first season sold to broadcasters or streamers in Germany, the U.K., Norway, Finland, Sweden, Poland, the U.S, Singapore, East Asia, Indonesia, and Brazil.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Netflix has come on board for the second year to support the Short Film Camp, a film industry training program for professionals from Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. The SFC is led by Purin Pictures, a film funding body backed by the Purin Foundation. The event, running for ten days (Dec. 2-12, 2022) in Bangkok, Thailand, will involve 12 teams of directors and producers. The 24 participants will receive mentoring that aims to hone their writing, producing and directing skills. The workshop culminates in a live pitch of their short film projects, where four winners will receive funding and post-production support to produce their short films.

Specialty film rollouts continues to accelerate with Chinonye Chukwu’s Till, Park Chan-wook’s Decision To Leave and A24’s Stars At Noon joining releases from previous weeks to populate theaters as awards season gathers steam.  

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Blackstone Publishing, Aethon Books and Sterling and Stone are among the first publishing partners to join Yonder, a new serialized fiction app combining mobile reading, a serialized experience and thousands of curated stories. Then venture is being launched by South Korea’s Naver, the tech giant that owns Webtoon and Wattpad, the story app that has germinated scores of book-to-film adaptations. The platform offers an ad-free reading experience with several chapters of each story available for free before readers are offered the chance to unlock additional material using virtual coins. At launch, Yonder is the home of exclusive new titles including “Bound to the Shadow Prince,” from Ruby Dixon, the international best-selling fantasy author of the TikTok viral sensation series “Ice Planet Barbarians”; “Bitten by Desire,” the first paranormal romance from best-selling author Ivy Smoak, (“The Hunted” book series”; and “Gravesong,” a spinoff of the popular web serial “The Wandering Inn,” from pirateaba.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Novelist Amy Tan and Oscar-winning “Rain Man” screenwriter Ron Bass are on board to deliver a sequel to “The Joy Luck Club,” the 1993 movie that broke new ground for Asian American representation. The new film, “Joy Luck Club 2,” is set up at Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park Entertainment Group, with Ashok and Priya Amritraj producing alongside Tan, Bass and Jeff Kleeman. A director hasn’t been announced yet. The original “Joy Luck Club,” directed by Wayne Wang, was an epic, multigenerational saga of Chinese and Chinese-American mothers and daughters, whose histories, stories and lives interweave as they navigate life. Club members included characters played by Tsai Chin, France Nuyen, Lisa Lu and Kieu Chinh. The ensemble cast also included Tamlyn Tomita, Rosalind Chao and Russell Wong.

Specialty distributor 3388 Films has set an October 28 U.S. theatrical release for Vietnamese comedy A Hundred Billion Key. The movie will have its North American premiere at the Newport Beach Film Festival a week prior on October 19. Check out the trailer below.

Rian Johnson’s murder-mystery sequel Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery will receive a theatrical UK release after Netflix struck deals with Vue International and Cineworld.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korean indie production house, IMTV is developing and will produce a drama series based on the New York Times best-selling novel, “The Island of Sea Women” by Lisa See.  The story is set largely on the remote Korean island of Jeju, among the community of ‘haenyo,’ women who earn a living by free diving for mollusks, seaweed and other sea life from the depths of the ocean. Representatives of a rare semi matriarchal society, the women work while the menfolk typically stay at home, though property is passed down along male lines. Celebrated activist and Nobel Prize-winner Malala recently boarded a documentary project about the haenyo of Jeju that is set up at the A24 U.S. indie studio.

EXCLUSIVE: Labid Aziz’sPeople of Culture Studios (PoC Studios), has picked up North American distribution rights to Kim Bass’s comedy A Snowy Day in Oakland, and will open the film nationwide in theaters over the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday weekend, Jan. 13, 2023. The movie is the debut theatrical release for PoC Studios. 

Angelique Jackson Rian Johnson’s highly-anticipated “Knives Out” sequel will first debut in theaters after all. While Netflix previously teased that “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” would play “in select theaters on a to-be-announced date,” the streamer has announced that the movie will hit theaters for a “special sneak peek preview” a full month before it launches on the platform. Following the highly-anticipated film’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it launched to rave reviews, Netflix has announced that “Glass Onion” will get a one-week only theatrical release over Thanksgiving with the film playing exclusively in theaters from Nov. 23-29.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Hong Kong multi-hyphenate Peter Chan Ho-sun is far too intellectual to call himself an “arms dealer,” as Sony Pictures has in casting itself as an unattached supplier to streaming platforms. But politeness and Bob Dylan references aside, Chan’s new company, Changin’ Pictures, aims to become a major independent purveyor of premium Asian TV content for the streamers. The company is using this week’s Busan International Film Festival as its launchpad and will unveil the first five series of its 20-title pan-Asian slate.  Chan’s thesis is that global audiences are hungry for Asian content but have not been able to access it easily under legacy film and TV distribution systems. With streaming making everything accessible everywhere, and audiences no longer balking at subtitles, quality Asian drama can and will travel.

tragically killed the director of photography, Halyna Hutchins, will in a boneheaded move resume filming and hit theaters. How deranged can these people possibly be?Extremely, it turns out. Hutchins’ family also supports and is involved in this misguided mess.