CreAsia Studio’s Jessica Kam-Engle On Producing Content For Southeast Asia: “If You Don’t Cook Dinner, You Go Out And Buy It”

Jeff Benjamin Yoshiki’s involvement in philanthropy encompasses a diverse range of causes, with his family and upbringing being core influences. “I lost my father when I was young,” Yoshiki says. “He actually took his own life.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “Dahomey,” the Berlinale Golden Bear-winning film helmed by French-Senegalese director Mati Diop, has been sold to a raft of international territories by Les Films du Losange. Along with being acquired by Mubi in key markets, “Dahomey” has been acquired in Australia & New Zealand (Rialto), China (Hugoeast), Spain (Filmin), Portugal (Nitrato Filmes), Greece (One From the Heart), Scandinavia (NonStop Entertainement), Benelux (Cinéart), Bulgaria (Beta Films), Ex-Yugoslavia (Discovery), Hungary (Mozinet), Czech Republic (Film Europe), Romania (Voodoo), Baltic Countries (Taip Toliau), Poland (New Horizons), Ukraine (Kyivmusicfilm), Taiwan (Joint Entertainment), Indonesia (PT Falcon) and Sudu Connexion in Africa.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Locally-produced horror-drama “Exhuma” held on to top spot at the South Korea cinema box office for a fifth consecutive weekend. Its complete dominance of the market kept “Exhuma” comfortably ahead of the holdover “Dune 2” and a couple of lower-powered new releases and allowed its running total to surpass 10 million ticket sales. That is the conventional measure of a blockbuster in Korea, a country with a population of roughly 50 million. Over the latest weekend “Exhuma” sold 618,000 tickets for a gross revenue of $4.56 million and a market share of 56%, according to data from Kobis, the database operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic). The latest increment gives the film a total of $73.4 million earned from 10.2 million admissions.

Naman Ramachandran BBC Studios, the commercial arm of the broadcaster, has acquired Spanish producer Brutal Media. Founded in 2009, Brutal Media’s credits include the recently announced original miniseries for Netflix, “Asalto Al Banco Central,” “The Academy” (Sony Pictures Television), “Vintage” (3cat), film “Killer Book Club” (Netflix), series “Welcome to Eden” (Netflix) and “The Hockey Girls” (Netflix, 3Cat), documentaries “The End of the Storm” (Sky TV, Liverpool FC) and “Murder by the Coast” (Netflix) and romantic comedy “I Love You Stupid” (Netflix).

Zendaya and Tom Holland were spotted enjoying a date day in California at Indian Wells Tennis Garden.The Hollywood duo looked to be fixated on the BNP Paribas Open, as they watched Carlos Alcaraz of Spain and Daniil Medvedev of Russia compete in the Men's Final. Euphoria star Zendaya, 27, and Spider-Man actor Tom, also 27, were joined by a friend as they watched the match unfold from the stands.The couple chatted and reacted to the match, with Tom covering his mouth at one point. The star looked stylish in a dark brown open shirt and white top, paired with tinted glasses and his hair swept to the side.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The South Korean box office had a familiar look. Dark drama, “Exhuma” dominated the chart with a more than 50% market share for the fourth weekend in a row. And, for the third successive weekend, “Dune 2” placed second. “Exhuma,” about two shaman, a feng shui master and a mortician who attempt to reverse the mysterious events happening to a U.S.-based Korean family, earned $5.80 million between Friday and Sunday.

Freed serial killer Charles Sobhraj, who allegedly murdered 20 backpackers in Asia, has been spotted amongst tourists in London.The 79-year-old French man was released from a Nepalese prison in 2022 after spending nearly two decades behind bars. Sobhraj, who inspired the hit BBC drama The Serpent in 2021, is suspected of killing at least 20 Western tourists who were travelling through Asia's "hippy trail" in the 1970s and 1980s. Now pictures show him visiting the UK wearing a false beard and wig, while he his being filmed for a documentary.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Hong Kong’s Film Development Council has unveiled the first shortlisted projects under its new scheme to develop content for streaming platforms. The Content Development Scheme for Streaming Platforms was announced last year. It aims to nurture cross-sectoral production teams and expand new distribution market and takes the form of a competition to recruit participating teams that develop a mini-series for streaming platforms.

On the heels of Best Animated Feature wins at the Oscars and Golden Globes, Hayao Miyazaki’s hand-drawn original The Boy and the Heron has been set to stream exclusively in the U.S. on Max, following the streamer’s move to extend its multiyear U.S. licensing deal with famed Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli.

Naman Ramachandran Dubai-based sales agency Cercamon has acquired worldwide rights for Indonesian film “Crocodile Tears,” it was revealed at Hong Kong rights market FilMart. The film is a co-production between Indonesia’s Talamedia (producer Mandy Marahimin), Singapore’s Giraffe Pictures (producers Anthony Chen and Teoh Yi Peng), France’s Acrobates Films (producer Claire Lajoumard) and Poetik Film (producer Christophe Lafont) and Germany’s 2Pilots Filmproduction (producers Harry Flöter and Jörg Siepmann). The deal was negotiated by Sebastien Chesneau at Cercamon, Chen at Giraffe Pictures and Marahimin at Talamedia.

Naman Ramachandran Korean action drama “A Shop For Killers” has become the most viewed local original on Disney+ in the Asia Pacific region (Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Philippines) so far in 2024, the streamer has revealed. Set in contemporary Korea, the eight-part series follows college student Jeong Jian who dives for cover in her childhood home after a series of highly skilled assassins come after her.

Naman Ramachandran India’s B62 Studios has an early 2024 hit with February release “Article 370,” and also has an ambitious slate lined up with plans for expanding into eastern Asia. B62 was launched by the brothers Dhar — Lokesh and Aditya — and is named after their address in Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar neighborhood, where they grew up watching the best of Bollywood alongside arthouse cinema. Lokesh Dhar went on to a flourishing career in film marketing, distribution and syndication before turning to producing, while Aditya Dhar directed military action film “Uri: The Surgical Strike,” one of the biggest Indian box office hits of 2019.

“We don’t need a lot of content, we just need lots of really good content,” Kelvin Yau, President of Asia Pacific and Marketing iQIYI, concluded when quizzed on his company’s editorial strategy during a keynote session on streaming this morning at Filmart in Hong Kong.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Chan Tai-lee, the screenwriter of many of the Ip Man martial arts action films, has written and directed upcoming action film “Fight for Tomorrow.” Mandarin Motion Pictures, which backed the film and is handling international rights sales, is using this week’s FilMart to launch the picture to international buyers. The production was assisted with finance from the Hong Kong Film Development Fund.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief A year after announcing the ambitious project, The Philippines ABS-CBN is now in production on new series “The Bagman.” Filming began in Manila on Feb. 25. “The Bagman” is a spin-off from the original, locally-produced digital series “Bagman” that was aimed at the Filipino audience.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief EST N8, the film and TV sales venture formed by U.S.-based EST and Thailand’s N8 company, has hired Chatsuree ‘Chat’ Sripamorn for an Asian sales roles. Reporting to Tenten Wei, she will represent the company at next week’s FilMart. Sripamorn has previously worked at three of the top Thai entertainment companies Mono Next, GMM Studios and Rose Studio over a span of ten years.

After a successful return as a physical event last year, Hong Kong International Film & TV Market (Filmart, March 11-14) is taking place again this year against a complicated backdrop, both in terms of market realities and the shifting geopolitics of the region. 

Room to Read, a global education nonprofit tackling illiteracy and gender inequality, announced a partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery for the premiere of , the first nonprofit-led animation and live-action film project to promote gender equality through the stories of young women around the world.

Good afternoon Insiders, Jesse Whittock with you in London, where the TV world has decamped this week for a series of screenings. Read on, and sign up for the newsletter here.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Atlas Distribution Company, a U.S. indie distributor, has set Vietnamese-American co-production film “A Fragile Flower” on course for a theatrical release in the U.S. Produced by the duo Mai Thu Huyen and Jacqueline Thu Thao, the romantic musical drama, with a screenplay by Vietnamese singing sensation Nhat Ha, is set debut from Mar.