Organised by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), the 25th Hong Kong International Film and TV Market | Online (FILMART Online) opened today and continues through 18 March, bringing together nearly 7,000 industry participants, including representatives of more than 670 exhibitors, from 81 countries and regions. The event will see the release and promotion of over 2,000 film and television productions to potential buyers from around the world.
Industry players from across the globe join online exhibition
FILMART Online has received strong support from production companies from Hong Kong, Mainland China and across the globe. Participating Hong Kong companies include Edko Films Limited, Emperor Motion Pictures, Golden Scene Company Limited, Mandarin Entertainment, Media Asia Film, Mega-Vision Project Workshop, Mei Ah Entertainment Group, One Cool Film Production, PCCW Media Limited, Sil-Metropole Organisation, Sun Entertainment, TVBI, and Universe Films Distribution.
Film companies from the mainland actively participating in the online exhibition include China International Television Corporation (CITVC), iQiyi Pictures and Bilibili Inc. Regional exhibitors include Beijing, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Jiangsu, Ningbo, Shandong, Shaanxi, Shanghai, Wenzhou, Haining from the mainland, along with Taiwan, Canada, the European Union, Finland, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and the United States. This year a number of regions, including Fiji, Jordan and Portugal, are introducing their hottest film-shooting locations along with policies that are preferential to filmmakers.
The Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF), a respected Asian film financing platform, will continue its efforts to create business exchange opportunities for film workers by exhibiting 28 HAF film projects in the development stage and 20 work-in-progress film projects.
Online conferences discuss latest industry trends and technologies
In addition to the exhibition, FILMART Online will also host a number of online conferences. Earlier today, business leaders from Facebook, Tencent's WeTV and iflix, and Eros Now discussed the latest film and TV viewing trends in the Asia market and introduced their companies' key growth markets and business strategies. An afternoon session featured a distinguished panel of speakers from Hunan TV, Muhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) and Fremantle Indonesia, who discussed how to create popular programme formats through co-production and export innovative TV programmes to the global market.
In the first morning session, Saurabh Doshi, Director Entertainment Partnerships, Asia-Pacific at Facebook, said the company had seen a massive increase in video consumption, whether through live or video-on-demand feeds, and that such behaviour will continue even after the pandemic is over. Mr Doshi also shared numbers for Facebook Watch. “We now have more than 1.25 billion people visit Watch every month since its launch in 2018, with close to half a billion people using Watch each month in the Southeast Asia region.”
As the industry gets ready to recover from the impact of the pandemic, filmmakers and visual effects (VFX) veterans have been breaking new ground in filmmaking during the lockdown. The “Digital Entertainment Summit” on the morning of 17 March, with the theme “Virtual Production: Immersive Pathway to Future-Proofing Filmmaking”, will invite VFX experts from Disguise, Reel FX and Lux Machina Consulting to share insights on how innovative technologies can open up new pathways for film production. In addition, representatives from Discovery Inc., Hulu Japan, iQIYI and WarnerMedia will be exploring post-pandemic opportunities in the film and TV industry over the next three days.
