Country Showcase Enables Greater Cooperation Between Media Industries

Singapore media industry’s co-production efforts with international partners received a boost on 10 December at the Asia Media Festival’s Country Showcase.

Organised by the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA), the event, a platform for prospective partners to share information and identify possible co-productions, had a special focus on creating content for multi-platform distribution and government funding for international co-productions.

Participants included government agencies and industry players from ASEAN, China, Australia, Canada, Germany and more.

In his opening speech, Dr Tan Chin Nam, Chairman, MDA, referred to the growing influence of Asian media products around the world, and the emergence of Asia media cities. “The rise of New Asia Media holds great potential and promise for Asian countries to leverage our collective soft power and cultures for both the regional and global markets,” he said.

The growth of Singapore itself as a media hub was boosted with agreements signed at the Country Showcase, and the continuing development of promising co-production schemes.

Highlights of the Showcase include:

• An MOU between MDA and China Education Television (CETV), one of China’s two national TV stations, to jointly produce 10 documentaries in HD over the next two years.
  
  Talks were also underway between China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) and MDA on a China-Singapore Film Co-Production Agreement.
  

• An MOU between MDA and the Korea IT International Cooperation Agency (KIICA) to facilitate greater media cooperation. The next chapter of this working relationship will begin with an upcoming HDTV documentary, Connected, helmed by Singapore’s Infocus Asia and Korea’s Digital Chosun.
  

• The announcement of two new cross-media projects greenlighted under the MDA-ScreenWest Cross-Media Development Initiative, which was launched in October between Singapore and the Western Australia film authority. They are: Off The Wall by ZacToons (Australia) and Scrawl Studios (Singapore) and Origami Samurai by Vue DC (Australia) and Sitting in Pictures (Singapore).
  

The Showcase also saw representatives from Singapore, Australia, China, Germany and Canada highlighting the incentives and benefits of co-producing in these countries, with China providing an absorbing case study of an ambitious China-Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar-Thailand-Vietnam co-production that was successfully completed last year.

Hosted by MDA, Asia Media Festival 2008 continues this week at the Suntec Singapore with events such as the Asia Television Forum, China Film Festival and Asian Television Awards.

For more information, go to www.asiamediafestival.com

For latest updates on the media industry, log on to www.smf.sg

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