‘Not a Murder Story’ Sets January Release Date for Taiwan’s ScreenWorks Asia

Meryl Streep is a proud mom. The Hollywood star stepped out with her four kids for a very special evening, putting on a united front on the red carpet of the Academy Museum Gala, following news about her separation from husband Don Gummer.WHY MERYL STREEP AND DON GUMMER DECIDED TO SEPARATE AFTER 45 YEARS OF MARRIAGEMERYL STREEP’S FOUR CHILDREN WITH DON GUMMER, AND THEIR INCREDIBLE RESEMBLANCE WITH THE ACTRESSThe 74-year-old Oscar winner was all smiles posing with her four kids on Sunday night, wearing a black dress with matching black heels.

Bianca Censori continues to make headlines for her revealing fashion ensembles. The Australian architect, who recently reunited with her husband Kanye West in Dubai, is rumored to be relocating with the rapper following a brief break in their relationship.

Britney Spears’ dad, Jamie Spears, is going through it. The 71-year-old has been in the hospital for weeks and TMZ reported Tuesday that he had to have his leg amputated because of a massive infection.

Daddy Yankee joins the list of celebrities who are stepping away from their successful careers in entertainment to devote their life to Christianism. The 46-year-old Puerto Rican global sensation Ramón Luis Ayala Rodríguez announced his retirement from reggaeton music in 2022 but never clarified the reasons until now.During Yankee’s last day of his farewell tour, La Meta (The Goal), in his homeland, the “Gasolina” and “Despacito” interpreter gave a lengthy speech revealing why he was leaving behind the genre that catapulted him into mainstream levels.Despite Daddy Yankee being known for coining the term “reggaeton,” also known as reggaetón and reguetón, and being the Spanish-speaking artist who opened the doors for the following generations, the star told the over 18,000 people at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico that Jesus Christ had filled his gaps. “I have to confess that those days are over.

is not yet over. , already has another headlining act lined up: a star turn on Broadway in the Chicago musical. Following in the iconic footsteps of Pamela Anderson, Mel B, and Christie Brinkley (to name a few), Madix will be portraying murderess and jazz singer Roxie Hart.Madix made the announcement on on December 6.

I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! viewers are determined they've found out which campmate Ant and Dec aren't very keen on.

Doing Cribs again! You will wanna watch! TONIGHT! 9:30 / 8:30 C. Only on MTV!

Rochelle Humes has finally landed in Australia after a grueling 24-hour trip.

Sir Paul McCartney has paid tribute to Mull of Kintyre singer Denny Laine, who passed away aged 79.

Marriage may not have worked out for Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, but they’ll always be “family.”

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Auto-bio Pamphlet,” a Marathi-language film that is both a love story and a rage against class divisions, will open the 18th edition of the Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival later this month. The festival will close with the world premiere of spy thriller “13 Bombs in Jakarta.” JAFF run Nov.

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.

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 Chen Shaojie, the founder and CEO of leading gaming live-streaming platform DouYu, has disappeared and has been incommunicado for some three weeks, according to multiple Chinese media sources. The local reports, subsequently carried by the Financial Times and the Alibaba-owned South China Morning Post based in Hong Kong, allege that Chen’s disappearance is related to discovery by authorities of pornography and gambling content on the platform. Both are illegal in mainland China.

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 Japanese entertainment conglomerate Kadokawa is seeking to double its international revenues through a strategy of diversification and localization. Taiwan is expected to be a key plank in the outreach, executives at the Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF) heard on Tuesday. “Currently 20% of Kadokawa’s revenues come from outside Japan. I want to get this figure to 40%,” said Natsuno Takeshi, CEO Kadokawa Corp. Kadokawa has its roots in publishing of comics and other fiction and also has deeply-established roots in film production and distribution.

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).

Screenworks Asia, the production subsidiary of Taiwan’s Catchplay, is teaming with the Taiwanese arm of Chinese platform iQiyi to jointly stream two of its original series: Not a Murder Story and I Can See You Shine.

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.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “The Boy and the Heron” supposedly the final feature film by Japanese animation maestro Miyazaki Hayao, placed on top of the south Korean box office for a second weekend. It held off challenges from a clutch of new releases, including “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” and “Talk to Me.” “The Boy and the Heron” collected $2.49 million between Friday and Sunday, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic).

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.

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.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Subscription video subscriptions in Taiwan increased by 315,000 in the July to September quarter, to reach 5.8 million, according toa new research report. Netflix and Disney+ were responsible for the bulk of the growth. The “Online Video in Taiwan” report from consultancy Media Partners Asia and its AMPD Research sister company showed premium VOD engagement and subscriptions were up 6% quarter on quarter.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Godzilla Minus One,” the biggest picture to date in the Japanese monster movie franchise and the Wednesday night closing gala title at the Tokyo International Film Festival, is set for pan-European release at the beginning of December. Rights were acquired for 38 territories (excluding the U.K., Ireland and German-speaking territories) by theatrical-only specialist distributor Piece of Magic Entertainment from Toho, the Japanese studio that controls the ‘kaiju’ franchise and distributes the picture in Japan from Nov.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Hong Kong-based sales firm Autumn Sun has acquisition worldwide rights to Chinese family-oriented animated film “I Am T-Rex,” directed by Shang Ming and Si Lin, produced by Beijing Create Dream. “I Am T-Rex” follows a young T-Rex named Didi in her coming of age journey after the death of powerful father T-Rex Rog, who is killed by a rival dino gang. She must learn the ways of the T-Rex and claim the crown again with the help of her uncle and a very caring friend.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Vietnam-based sales agent Skyline Media has closed multi-territory deals for two of its current titles “The Soul Reaper” and “Vietnamese Horror Story.” The deals follow Skyline’s recent trip to Busan’s ACFM and come ahead of its participation as exhibitor at a string of further final quarter sales events – Tokyo’s TIFFCOM, Santa Monica’s American Film Market and Taipei’s Taiwan Creative Content Fest. Folk horror film “The Soul Reaper,” currently in the final stages of post-production, was licensed to GaragePlay for Taiwan and to Westec Media Limited (WML) for Laos, Cambodia and nine other Southeast Asian territories. The film, adapted from Thao Trang’s best-selling horror novel “Lunar New Year in Hell Village” (aka “Tet O Lang Dia Nguc”), is set to be released in Vietnam cinemas on 08 December. GaragePlay is one of Taiwan’s leading distributors, and recently handles releases of “Suzume,” “John Wick: Chapter 4” and “Someday or One Day.” WML is the biggest content distributor in Cambodia and has distributed more than 1,000 titles theatrically since its establishment.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Top Japanese director Kurosawa Kiyoshi is in post-production of “Le Chemin du Serpent,” a French-language adaptation of his own 1998 film “The Serpent’s Path.” The story sees a mysterious woman team up with a man whose daughter was killed and who is now seeking revenge. Together they kidnap members of an organization and torture them to find out what really happened. With Damien Bonnard (“Asteroid City,” “Les Miserables”) and Shibasaki Ko (“47 Ronin,” “Battle Royale”) in the leading roles, the picture is the anchor title of the TIFFCOM sales slate of major Japanese studio Kadokawa. Production is by Kadokawa and Jean-Luc Ormieres’ Cinefrance Studios.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Boutique sales agent, House of Film has acquired worldwide rights, excluding Asia, to represent the Malaysian mythical horror film “Curse of the Totem” (aka “Sumpahan Jerunei”) from Produksi Seni Duapuluh-Duapuluh SDN BHD. Based on the 13th Century Borneo sacrificial rituals, “Curse of the Totem” tells the story of Dr.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Japanese drama film “Mountain Woman,” which was one of the standouts titles at last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival, is to be represented for global sales by EST N8. Inspired by “The Legends of Tono,” which is Japanese folklore from the Tohoku region, the film depicts a small Japanese village overrun by famine. The burden falls upon Rin, a woman whose connections with the spirit and natural worlds allow her to rise amidst familial conflicts.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief No Maori Allowed, directed by Corinna Hunziger was named the winner of the Pasifika Award and recipient of a $5,000 cash prize at the Hawaii International Film Festival. It recounts the story of a teacher who unearths a secret past in the town of Pukekohe. Thet causes M?ori community figures to come forward to share personal stories that shaped their lives.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Six film projects currently at development stage have been selected to take part in a workshop session as part of mylab+@Jogja next month. The six share a common characteristic of Indonesian co-production and a recurring theme of luminescence. “This theme underscores the importance of having the distinctive light of Asian cinema arise from its own characteristics.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief A TIFFCOM seminar on Thursday demonstrated both a sense of incredulity that Japanese animation “Suzume” could have enjoyed such wide international success and conveyed the depth of passionate behind-the-scenes strategizing that made it happen. Since its release in Japan at the end of 2022 and international expansion in spring of 2023, following a Berlin festival competition slot, “Suzume,” a fantasy drama about a girl who helps avert natural disasters, sold more than 47 million tickets worldwide. “And most of those people don’t even speak Japanese,” said the session’s moderator Sudo Tadashi, journalist and professor at the Japan University of Economics. Sunami Kazuki, MD of producer CoMix Wave Films and the Takeda Akihiro, an executive attached to the president’s office at the film’s worldwide distributor Toho, said that “Suzumi’s” success was not a foregone conclusion. Its success was years in the making and based on the growing performance of director Makoto Shinkai’s previous movies as well as growing international understanding of the Japanese anime genre. At the beginning of their collaboration, Shinkai and CoMix had little expectation that Shinkai’s works could appeal to non-Japanese distributors and audiences. But, within Asia at least, fans are tuned in to certain kinds of content from other countries. “We also owe this success to the cumulative impact of Studio Ghibli and ‘Demon Slayer 2’,” said Sunami. Shinkai’s 2013 film “The Garden of Words” was initially a Japan-only theatrical release, but it registered in China after Japanese box office success.