‘Filipino’, ‘Carjacker’ and ‘Women’ win SAFF awards
IFFAM alumnus Mehta takes ‘Delhi Crime Story’ to Sundance
LOS ANGELES, Dec 8, (RTRS): Filipino-American filmmaker Mel Allego’s “Filipino” won the Cre8 co-production award at the Southeast Asian Film Financing project market awards on Friday.
Set in Cebu, The Philippines, the film is a political thriller written and co-produced by Mel Allego. A director has not been finalized yet. “We are looking for someone who can command the box office, as well as someone who’s mature,” said Allego. The Cre8 award comes with a minimum of $20,000 in cash, an amount that can go up to $200,000 once the project goes into production with Cre8 as co-producer.
“It is a co-production award,” Crea8’s Chan Gin Kai said. “We are committing to work with him as a co-producer. He may be a first-time producer, but the story is great and, more importantly, he has the vision of how he wants it to pan out.”
Singaporean crime drama “The Carjacker” by Oman Dhas won the Aurora Media Award. The award carries a cash prize of $10,000, that can go up to US$150,000 if Aurora boards the project as co-producer. Dhas is a veteran of television, and “The Carjacker” will be his second feature after 2013’s “Hotel de Sade”. “This award is a good kickstart for me,” said Dhas.
Producer Oh Youngjeong and director The Maw Naing’s drama “The Women”, from Myanmar won the AV8 Award that comes with
two training vouchers worth $1,500 (SG$2,000) each.
LOS ANGELES:
Also:
“Delhi Crime Story”, a seven-part series by Indo-Canadian writer-director Richie Mehta (“Siddharth”) will have its world premiere at Sundance in early 2019.
Mehta was at the 2nd International Film Festival and Awards, Macao (IFFAM), in 2017 with “The Price of Tea”, one of the three auteur projects at the IFFAM project market that year. Set in Beijing, the film will follow a Canadian man who falls for a Chinese woman over the course of a magical day only to discover that she is not what she seems.
Several parts of “Delhi Crime Story” will play as part of Sundance’s Indie Episodic strand. Based on the 2012 rape case in Delhi that shocked the world, the series centers on the heroic actions of the Delhi police. With the eyes of the world upon it, the investigation is led by one passionate female officer who was driven to find the perpetrators by the crime’s extreme brutality.
“We wanted to illustrate and explore a crime that is so incomprehensible to most people that you don’t know where to start to think about it. And while you don’t want to think about it, it’s a topic that needs to be addressed,” Mehta said. “This led us to the production of a multiple part television series, because there is so much to explore and it can be done in the auspices of a police thriller procedural that should keep audiences gripped.”
“I’m trying to get through this, like all of us. And I feel that, through the story of these police officers who deal with gang rape every single day of their lives, our series can provide a catharsis and learning, as well as an exploration and understanding of law and order in a developing world,” Mehta added.
The cast includes Shefali Shah (“Once Again”), Adil Hussain (“Life of Pi), Denzil Smith (“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”), Rasika Duggal (“Manto”), Rajesh Tailang (“Selection Day”) and Yashaswini Dayama (“Dear Zindagi”).
The series is a co-production between Golden Karavan and Ivanhoe Pictures. Serving as executive producers for Golden Karavan are Aaron Kaplan, Jeff Sagansky, Florence Sloan, Apoorva Bakshi, Pooja Kohli, and Sanjay Bachani. Executive producers from Ivanhoe Pictures are John Penotti, Kilian Kerwin, and Michael Hogan. This is the first project from Golden Karavan.
Ivanhoe already has a strong Asian presence. Along with Warner Bros and Color Force, Ivanhoe produced and co-financed “Crazy Rich Asians”. With Fox International Pictures it produced the South Korean thriller “The Wailing” by Na Hong-jin. In China, Ivanhoe teamed with Hairun Pictures on “My Other Home”.