Producers association Bridging The Dragon (BTD) is hosting a forum during the European Film Market (EFM, February 16-22) at Berlin Film Festival to explore collaboration between the film industries of Europe and Asia.
The forum will take place over two days. On February 19, BTD will host a panel discussion, “Moving East: Perspectives of collaboration between Europe, China and Far East Asia”. On February 21, the forum will host five round tables exploring the film industries of China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Mongolia.
Speakers on the panel include Francesco Prandoni, head of International Operations at Japanese animation studio Production I.G.; Eunjung Yoo, CEO and producer at Korea’s BlessU Pictures; Carles Montiel, director of the film division at China-backed Spanish group Mediapro Studio; and Patrick Mao Huang, founder and producer at Taiwan’s Flash Forward Entertainment.
Industry experts participating in the round tables include the above mentioned Huang and Yoo, BTD’s head of China Operations Fan Zhang, Japanese producer Eiko Mizuno-Gray (Plan 75), and Nomuunzul Turmunkh, producer and board member of the Mongolian National Film Council.
BTD started to expand out of its previous focus on Sino-European collaboration with a Euro-Asian project lab held in Mallorca, Spain last November. Hosted in collaboration with Mallorca Film Commission and ICEX, the four-day lab (Nov 25-28) included a workshop on remakes and sessions with speakers from Japan’s content market TIFFCOM and the Korean Film Council (KOFIC).
While the downturn in China’s film industry over the past few years prompted BTD’s expansion, the association also noted that China’s box office has started to recover and the industry is opening up again following the abandonment of the Covid-Zero policy earlier this year.
At the same time, other film industries in East Asia are experiencing an encouraging post-pandemic recovery.
“In 2022, Japan became the world’s third largest box-office market, while Korean contents have received enormous attention at international film festivals and on global streamers,” said BTD. “Regions like Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Mongolia, although with a smaller internal market, are attracting more international productions by introducing co-production funds and local incentives.”