Kadokawa CEO Natsuno Takeshi Eyes Diversification, Taiwan Expansion: ‘I Envy You, Taiwanese Creatives’

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The husband and wife team of Otsuka Ryuji and Huang Ji, who worked with a minimalist crew and mostly non-professional actors, gave a round of thanks to Asian leading auteurs for inspiring them, and then hugged each other on stage for winning the Taipei Golden Horse Film Awards best narrative feature prize with their pregnancy drama “Stonewalling.” The numerical winner on Saturday night was “Old Fox,” which earned the best director award for Hsiao Ya-chuan, as well as the best supporting actor, makeup and costume, and best film score prizes. The nominations, announced in October, saw “Snow in Midsummer” collect nine nominations and Taiwan‘s Oscar contender “Marry My Dead Body” head the field with eight.

China-set drama Stonewalling, co-directed by husband-and-wife team Ryuji Otsuka and Huang Ji, won best narrative feature at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards, which is celebrating its 60th edition this year.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival drifted to a conclusion in midweek, with project awards presented on Wednesday, followed by Thursday’s festival closing events. These involved a screening of portmanteau film “Tales of Taipei” followed by a sit-down dinner-cum-ceremony with a breezy pair of speeches and no prizes. The film fortnight then sprang to life again on Saturday evening when the 60th edition of the Golden Horse Film Awards represented a new climax.

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.

Taiwan’s Golden Horse Film Project Promotion (FPP) has wrapped with Lee Yi-shan’s debut feature Chewing Gum winning the Grand Prize, which comes with a cash award of $32,000 (TWD1M). 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Chewing Gum” was named winner of the NT$1 million Grand Prize, the top award at the 2023 Golden Horse Film Project Promotion production event. Other prizes were awarded for works in progress and for TV series. The winners were announced at a ceremony on Wednesday at the New Horizon Event Space in Taipei, Taiwan.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Cannes’ Directors Fortnight section has joined forces with The Philippines for the latest edition of its Directors Factory professional training program. Operating since 2013, when it kicked off in Taiwan, the Directors’ Factory works with a new partner country each year to mentor eight budding filmmakers who are preparing ambitious first or second feature projects that they will make in pairs. The four resulting co-written and co-directed short films will be screened as part of the Directors’ Fortnight (aka Quinzaine des Cineastes) in May. Four pairs were selected in Manila in October: Eve Baswel (Philippines) and Gogularaajan Rajendran (Malaysia); Maria Estela Paiso (Philippines) and Ashok Vish (India); Arvin Belarmino (Philippines) and Lomorpich Rithy (aka YoKi) (Cambodia); Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan (Philippines) and Tan Siyou (Singapore). They have now begun writing their screenplays and are expected to shoot their films March in Dapitan, a city in The Philippines’ Zamboanga Peninsula, known for its many shrines and as the place of exile of Philippines’ national hero, Jose Rizal. These days it is a hub for domestic and international tourism. Post-production of the four titles will then be hosted in Quezon City, which seeks to become the new film capital of the Philippines and where many of the country’s post-production houses are already based. The program is operated and co-produced by Epicmedia Productions of The Philippines and Dominique Welinski, founder and curator of DW (France).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Leading Korean star Jung Woo-sung (“A Moment to Remember”) will star opposite Shin Hyun-been (“Hospital Playlist”) in “Tell Me That You Love Me,” an original series for Genie TV. The show is a remake of the hit Japanese series of the same name that first aired at Tokyo Broadcasting Systems linear channel in Japan some 28 years ago in 1995. The new show will upload to Genie’s own streaming service on Nov. 27 and the same day in Japan on Disney+.

Former Talkback and Thames chief Leon Wilson has been named CEO of Banijay UK labels Shine TV and Zeppotron.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The fourth running of the Taiwan Creative Content Fest (aka TCCF) wrapped on Friday with the award of some 30 prizes to film and TV projects in five sections. The prizes followed three and a half days of one-on-one meetings and pitching within the context of the TAICCA-backed project, innovation and rights sales market.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Taiwanese production companies DaMou Entertainment and KOKO Entertainment unveiled a starry local cast for “Fired Up,” their Taiwan remake of hit Korean series “Itaewon Class.” At an event held within the Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF) on Thursday, the two companies also confirmed plans for a second season of “The World Between Us,” a 2019 drama series that premiered on Taiwan’s Public Television Service and regional streamer Catchplay. “Fired Up” will star Mandarin-language pop star Eric Chou, Golden Horse Film Award nominee Angela Yuen, Shao Yu-wei, Huang Guan-zhi, Cosmos Lin, Ben Wu and Sean Lin in leading roles. The show is co-directed by kao Pin-chuan and Tseng Ying-ting, working from a script headed by Chien Li-ying (“Wave Makers”). “Itaewon Class” is a story about an ex-convict who sets up his own business after release from jail.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief France and Taiwan on Thursday signed a wide-ranging agreement to enable their film and TV industries co-operate on a higher level. At a signing ceremony in Taipei at the Taiwan Creative Culture Fest (TCCF) convention, government representatives of both territories stressed shared values at the political level and in the audiovisual sphere.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Nebula, which launched in 2019, describes itself as a creator-focused, creator-built, creator-first premium streaming service — akin to a Netflix or Hulu, but with the ethos of Patreon. The four-year-old indie streaming service, which is backed by creator-owned management company Standard and a minority stake held by Curiosity Stream, costs $5 a month or $50 a year and currently totals 650,000 subscribers and passed 100,000 daily active users in October.

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.

Taiwan Creative Content Fest kicked off in Taipei today with organizer, Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA), emphasizing its soft power ambitions and growing international cooperation activities, in particular with France, South Korea and Japan. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief CJ ENM Hong Kong, a unit of South Korea’s CJ ENM, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA), Far EasTone Telecommunications (FET) and local TV network – TVBS to launch a multi-year content fund that would support the co-production and joint distribution of audiovisual content. The “strategic alliance” combines assets including production, distribution and marketing, media networks and technology.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief A trio of ministers, accompanied by a fleet of senior industry names, were on hand Tuesday in Taipei to give their official blessing to the opening of the fourth running of the Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF) – and to underline the Taiwan government’s investment in soft power. Cheng Wen-tsan, VP of the [government executive branch] Executive Yuan, Taiwan’s Minister of Culture, Shih Che, and a minister without portfolio were accompanied by Chunghwa Telecom’s chairman, Kuo Shui-Yi, head of TAICCA Homme Tsai and Dominique Boutonnat, president of France’s National Center of Cinematography and the Moving Image, on stage at the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park, a former-tobacco factory site that has since been redeveloped. “Nowadays we are investing not only in semiconductors and heavy industry, but also in media and content,” said Cheng. He confirmed that some NT$10 billion ($310 million) of government funding has been approved for the “1 Plus 4T Content Plan” and will be released over four years. In a classic example of public-private partnerships, state cash is being supplemented by further financial commitments from Taiwan’s three major cable-telecoms-internet groups through deals signed last week with Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Screenworks Asia, the production subsidiary of Taiwan-based streaming platform Catchplay, has set two series to release early next year. “Not A Murder Story” follows a wannabe actor who finally gets a chance of success. And when he wakes up with a dead woman besides him, he is determined not to let it stand in his way.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Unscripted queer reality dating series “Boys Like Boys” is to air on Warner Bros. Discovery’s TLC channel in Taiwan in early 2024, making it the first local LGBTQ+ dating reality show to air on linear TV in the territory. The show is an original production by GagaOOLala, Asia’s out and proud LGBTQ+ streaming service, which is pitching an expanded array of queer content at the Taiwan Creative Contents Fest (TCCF) that launches Tuesday in Taipei. “Boys Like Boys” had its premiere at the Kaohsiung International Film Festival and is now available worldwide on GagaOOLala and WeTV in the Philippines and Thailand, where the ‘Boys Love’ genre has become highly popular.

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.