RETURN TO SPACE
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.
SLR gives the logline as: “On the brink of their greatest mission ever – travelling to the incredible Stardustian’s planet – the Novas’ ship is almost destroyed, throwing them off course and strandingtheir new friend Ziggy in parts unknown. Now, to find Ziggy and unravel a ‘universal imbalance’, the Novaswill have to challenge everything they thought they knew about space: see the unseeable, know the unknow-able, and find theunfindable.”
FESTIVAL
The U.K.’s Raindance Film Festival has promoted festival producer David Martinez to executive director and senior programmers Martyna Szmytkowska and Malaika Bova to artistic directors. Head of programming and co-founder Suzanne Ballantyne continues as artistic director and, along with Szmytkowska and Bova, the trio will lead on driving the festival’s creative vision forward, helming the broader programming team. Elliot Grove, founder of the Raindance Film School, the Raindance Film Festival and the British Independent Film Awards, will remain CEO of the festival.
The 30th edition of the festival takes place Oct. 26- Nov 5.
AWARDS
Prasun Chatterjee‘s “Dostojee” (“Two Friends”), which began its festival journey in 2021 at the BFI London Film Festival, has won best film at the Sharjah International Film Festival for Children and Youth. The film also recently won the top prize, the Golden Shika Award, at the Nara International Film Festival, Japan. As a part of this award the team will get the chance to make a film in Japan, which will be fully funded by Nara IFF. The film is produced by Chatterjee, Prosenjit Ranjan Nath, Soumya Mukhopadhyay and Ivy Yu-Hua Shen.
LION’S LAST ROAR
Zee Plus, the co-production and development arm of India’s Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd.,has announced“The Lion’s Last Roar,” as its latest co-productionwith the U.K.’s Talesmith. The series, to be distributed internationally by TVF, is currently in production and will be available in March 2023. The premium documentary two-parter is filmed in 4K and explores topic of lion conservation. India is the only country outside Africa where lions live wild, but their numbers have collapsed. Zee Plus and Talesmith previously partnered on“Life of Earth: From Space”and“Life of Earth: The Age of Humans,” for Zee Entertainment and Smithsonian Networks.
GOLDEN HORSE AWARDS JURY
Hong Kong-based filmmaker Ann Hui will head the jury deciding the main prizes at next month’s Golden Horse Film Awards in Taiwan. The awards are generally regarded as the most prestigious annual prizes Chinese-language cinema. She is joined on the jury by actress Gwei Lun-mei, actor Chang Chen, director Cheng Wei-hao, producer Yeh Jufeng and cinematographer Yu Jing-pin. Nominations were announced recently. The awards ceremony, which concludes the Golden Horse Film Festival will take place in Taipei, on Nov. 19, 2022.
SEX TRAFFICKING
“The New Abolitionists,” a documentary film by Christina Zorich, will kick off its Oscar-qualifying run on Friday at the Laemmle Monica Film Center in Santa Monica. The film tracks Zorich’s journey as she follows committed abolitionists, Christian ministries and NGOs, throughout Southeast Asia as they attempt to put an end to human sex trafficking in Cambodia and Thailand. The film is presented as part of “Kat Kramer’s Films That Change The World,” a selection of films and documentaries that raise awareness of important social issues, founded by Katharine Kramer.
ATF PITCHING
Singapore’s Asia TV Forum and Market is to launch two pitching sessions, one in partnership with streamer Vidio, looking at the Indonesian market, the other with Warner Bros. Discovery in search for drama concepts for the Thai market. Finalists of both pitches will get to pitch their ideas to industry veterans during the ATF (Dec. 7 to 9, 2022) at the Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre, as part of the Singapore Media Festival (SMF) hosted by the Infocomm Media Development Authority. The market has previously announced other pitching sessions covering animation, formats, Chinese content and an IP accelerator.
SINGAPORE TOURISM
The Singapore Tourism Board and Warner Bros. Discovery have announced a three-year partnership to collaborate on entertainment and lifestyle content, joint marketing and promotion of Singapore as a travel destination. Their memorandum of understanding will span original localized storiesspanning scripted formats, drama serials, animation and mini-documentaries. It will kickstart with HBO Asia Originals series“Food Affair with Mark Wiens.” Prior to the MoU,the two parties previously collaborated on international marketing for“Crazy Rich Asians”in 2018 and HBO’s“Westworld” season 3in Singapore in 2020.
STEVE JonES GOES BEYOND
Seasoned television executive Steve Jones has joined Beyond Rights’ London-based team to fill the newly created role, as SVP of development. His brief is to develop original ideas for returnable, popular factual series that meet demand in the market. Jones has worked in the U.K. and Australia in a range of high-profile positions, including commissioning editor and executive producer, entertainment and factual, at Sky 1; executive producer, factual and factual entertainment at Discovery Networks Europe; development executive and series producer at CJZ Productions; and executive producer and development executive at Endemol Southern Star. He also co-founded Big Little Fish Television in 2019, the U.K. indie he co-ran for more than two years.
