FOR HEAVENS SAKE
“Heavens: The Boy and His Robot,” a Singapore-produced movie, will have its world and commercial premiere in Japanese cinemas this November. The film is Singapore’s first live-action feature film of the mecha genre, a genre of Japanese manga and anime that features or focuses on mechanical innovations such as robots and cyborgs.
The film is an action-adventure drama with offbeat humor, following the journey of a struggling young pilot, Kai, and his fighter mecha, Little Dragon. Set against a backdrop of epic galactic warfare, the movie explores Kai’s dream of joining the Mecha Corps to bring peace to a war-torn world and the unique friendship that develops between him and his mecha.
The film is very much the product of Rich Ho, who serves as producer, director, writer, film music composer, art director, set designer, director of photography and co-visual effects supervisor. Distribution in Japan (under the localized title “Mechaverse: Shonen to Robotto”) is being handled by Elles Films. International sales are being handled by Ho’s Heavens Entertainment, having taken over from previously announced Arclight Films.
‘BACKSPOT’ TO WORLD PREMIERE AT TORonTO FILM FESTIVAL
“Backspot,” D.W. Waterson’s competitive cheer drama executive produced by Elliot Page, will world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival. See the first-look image above.
The film’s cast includes Devery Jacobs, Evan Rachel Wood, Shannyn Sossamon, Kudakwashe Rutendo, Thomas Antony Olajide, Olunike Adeliyi and Wendy Crewson.
According to the film’s official synopsis, “Riley (Jacobs) is the formidable backspot on her mid-level cheerleading squad until professional coach Eileen McNamara (Wood) gives her an opportunity to join the Thunderhawks, a high performance All Star team. Young, ambitious and fiercely in love with her girlfriend Amanda (Rutendo), Riley would be on top of the world if only she could get her crippling anxiety under control. Desperate to be heard and appreciated, two qualities her home life severely lacks, Riley will do anything to ingratiate herself to her new coach. Overwhelmed, obsessive and with a competition looming, this young, queer athlete must decipher her own voice from the women around her, and form a healthier relationship to the sport that she loves.”
Waterson said in a statement, “As a Toronto-based creator, it has long been my dream to premiere my first feature film at TIFF, a festival that I have wholly participated in over years, starting as an eager film student, then as an emerging filmmaker and most recently as part of TIFF’s Talent Lab. The heart, dedication and grit that has been put into the creation of Backspot, from pre-production to today’s announcement is a testament to the countless queer creatives on this project, and the impressive female and queer athletes breaking their bodies to perform, in a sport that’s undervalued. I am pumped that we get to premiere this film in our hometown.”
ConTENT CURATION
Hollywood content curation platform TaleFlick has launched its Arabic platform, which aims to bridge the gap between the Arab world’s burgeoning creative community and Hollywood, as well as local producers and studios. The Arabic platform operates in the same way as the Hollywood TaleFlick portal, allowing authors and rights owners to directly submit their stories. As with English submissions, Arabic submissions are analyzed by the Taleflick algorithm and selected manuscripts are then further assessed for their adaptation potential by professional readers. Submissions are curated to provide industry professionals a searchable database of ready-to-adapt original content.
“This is a historic moment for us and for storytellers across the Arab World,” said Uri Singer, CEO of TaleFlick. “There’s an abundance of rich, diverse stories in this region that haven’t been tapped into by Hollywood or local producers. Our platform will provide the necessary space for these voices to be heard and for these stories to be shared globally.”
STREAMING
NextUp, the comedy-on-demand streaming service, has partnered with Extreme to be available as a FAST channel on Virgin Media in the U.K. The linear ad-supported channel NextUp Live Comedy features stand-up comedy content including livestreams from the Edinburgh Fringe Comedy Festival throughout August, offering Virgin Media TV customers with TV 360, Stream or a V6 box access to hours of entertainment at no extra cost. NextUp is also working with Extreme to launch its FAST channels on further platforms later this month.
NextUp is using the U.K. government’s Innovate Grant to scale the business through technology that enables transparency on minutes watched and revenue collected and to improve accessibility to comedy by providing venues with the technology to instantly stream their shows on to the platform. It is also integrating real time AI captioning to make the shows accessible to a wider audience. The technology it is developing will soon be licensable to third parties.
TELENOVELAS TURNING JAPANESE
NHK Enterprises, an affiliate of Japan’s public broadcaster NHK, has picked up Japan rights to Brazilian media giant Globo’s “God Save the King.” The show is a medieval telenovela with Marina Ruy Barbosa (“Total Dreamer”), Romulo Estrela (“A Life Worth Living”) and Bruna Marquezine (“Brave Woman). The show will play from Sept. 4 in Japan on Pay-TV’s ChannelGinga and on Lemino, an OTT platform run by NTT Docomo.
Written by Daniel Adjafre, with artistic direction by Fabrício Mamberti (“We Are Five”), “God Save the King” is set in the fictional region of Gália, where the kingdoms of Montemor and Artena have lived in peace for a long time – until some choices by their monarchs and their consequences directly interfere with the course of history.
NHK Enterprises previously licensed another Globo show “Brazil Avenue.”
TURN TO SPEAK
Carlo Katigbak, president and CEO of The Philippines content group ABS-CBN; Wang Xiaohui, chief content officer of Chinese streamer iQiyi; Kushboo Yadav, CEO of India’s Jio Entertainment Services; Daniel Riddell, CTO of Kidoodle.TV; Patompong Sirachairat, COE of Thailand’s Mono Next; and Aron Levitz, president of Wattpad Webtoon Studios are the first speakers named for the Asian Television Forum & Market in Singapore in December. The ATF Market and conference runs Dec. 6-8, while the ATF Leaders Dialogue sessions will be held on Dec. 5.
CHAMPION
Media mogul, entrepreneur and CEO of EbonyLife Group, Mo Abudu, has been appointed Creatives Champion for the upcoming U.K.-African Investment Summit scheduled to take place in April 2024 in the U.K., the country’s Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, James Cleverly, revealed during a creative industries event at Lagos. As part of the summit, a U.K.-Nigeria creatives side event will be held in London, to promote and project the creatives sector in Nigeria and other African countries and U.K.-African collaboration in this field.
CASTING AROUND
Award-winning Italian casting director Massimo Appolloni, whose credits include Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God” and Michael Mann’s “Ferrari,” has signed with Stacey Castro Media for exclusive worldwide management. With Annamaria Sambucco, he recently cast Sorrentino’s untitled upcoming film.
Rome-based Appolloni has past credits that include Alice Rohrwacher’s “Happy as Lazzaro” and HBO series “The New Pope.” Appolloni has also worked on Amazon series “Everybody Loves Diamonds” and Valeria Golino’s “The Art of Joy,” both of which are in production.
DISTRIBUTION
“The Highest of Stakes,” Muse Storytelling’s documentary on the Hex crypto and its founder Richard Heart, directed by Patrick Moreau (“The Britto Doc”) and Grant Peelle (“#standwithme”), will premiere in Cineworld cinemas in 12 markets across the U.K. and Ireland Aug. 18 following its limited national at 40 Regal cinemas in the US starting Aug. 4.
The documentary follows the journey of Heart, the creator of Hex coin, which grew 10,000 times in value and subsequently plummeted during the financial market crash of 2022. Throughout that time, Heart raised $1 billion from the devoted Hex community to develop his latest product.
The distribution news arrives as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has sued Heart for allegedly engaging in the sale of unregistered securities.
APPOINTMENT
Strike Media, which works across trade, unit, consumer PR and social, predominantly within the film industry, has appointed former Peleton, Legoland Windsor and Paramount Pictures marketing professional Michele Le Tissier as head of brand partnerships. Strike, whose clients include Vertigo Releasing, Paramount Pictures U.K., TMP, Kaleidoscope, Bulldog, 108 Media, Alief, Munro and Lightbulb Film Distribution, made the appointment in light of client need and hired Le Tissier for her experience in the brand partnerships sector.
