Singapore Media Festival to Feature New Focus on Digital Content

October 3, 2015 World Screen Top Stories
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SINGAPORE: The second edition of the Singapore Media Festival (SMF), which is taking place from November 26 to December 6, will feature a new constituent event, Digital Matters.

Digital Matters is the latest addition to the SMF roster, which also encompasses the Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF), Asia TV Forum & Market (ATF), ScreenSingapore (SS) and Asian Television Awards (ATA).

YouTube stars Alfie Deyes and Marcus Butler will be heading the lineup at Digital Matters. They will be joined by leaders in the online entertainment and brand marketing space, including Bing Chen, the chief creative officer from Victorious; Josh Black, the CEO of GroupM Entertainment; and Susana Tsui, the CEO of PHD Asia Pacific.
 
The SGIFF will launch a new The Future of Cinema forum series, focusing this year on digital distribution. The director of audience development and content operations at Vimeo, Peter Gerard, heads the panel of speakers, along with filmmakers James Lee, Christian Lee and Jason Chan. The forum is moderated by Singapore filmmaker and SGIFF board member Tan Pin Pin.

ATF's pre-market conference will also feature a range of insights on the Asian content industry, including digital trends and evolving business models in content creation and consumption. ATF, meanwhile, will host several TV masterclasses for producers, including sessions by Melodie L. Shaw, from the Writers Guild of America, and Dave Winnan, executive producer of international formats for ITV Studios.

ScreenSingapore has a new partnership with the Southeast Asian Audio-Visual Association to run the Southeast Asian Film Financing Project Market, where ten in-development fiction and nonfiction feature-film projects will take part in the project market. They will be matched with commissioner, investors and co-production partners.

Robert Gilby, the chairman of the SMF advisory board and the managing director of the Walt Disney Company Southeast Asia, said, “Our stronger focus on digital content at this year’s SMF promotes greater collaboration and partnership across the film, TV and digital sectors—a key differentiator from other traditional film and TV events.”

He added, “The new elements at this year’s SMF will also strengthen investment opportunities for media players, establishing SMF’s valued position as a key connector and platform for global media players venturing into Asia, and for Asian media professionals going global.”

The SMF will continue to showcase works from Singapore and across the region. The SGIFF will pay tribute to acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf with an Honorary Award and a special retrospective of five of his works. For the first time, ATA will be broadcasted live, expanding the reach of the awards to more than 80 million households across Asia. The ATA will also present the Achievement Award this year to Liu Changle, the founder, chairman and CEO of Phoenix Satellite Television.

The SGIFF is offering members of the public a lineup of screenings. The international premiere of Taiwanese indigenous film Panay is set to open the festival on November 26, while two iconic films of Singapore cinema—Eric Khoo’s Mee Pok Man and Yonfan’s Bugis Street Redux—have been included as part of the Classics segment. ATA’s celebrity lineup will feature performances from Indonesia’s Anggun. Allan Wu, Joey Mead King, Max Loong and Stephanie Carrington join as hosts for the evenings.

“We achieved several milestones and successes in our inaugural year for the Singapore Media Festival, and we hope to continue building on these to make the festival a signature event not just for media professionals, but also everyone in Singapore,” said Angeline Poh, the assistant chief executive (Industry) of Singapore’s Media Development Authority. “The public can look forward to a host of exciting events and screenings, which makes the SMF a great platform for film buffs and digital media fans to appreciate regional content and meet local and regional talent.”