5 Jul – The Southeast Asian Film Financing (SAFF) Project Market returns for its third edition this year as it recently launches its call for submissions. Interested filmmakers have the chance to submit their entries to the SAFF Project Market 2017 until this 20 August. "We're happy to come together with our partner organisations in Singapore and Europe to open up the SAFF Project Market once more to producers and filmmakers with regional projects with each edition growing from strength to strength," said Justin Deimen, Executive Director of SAAVA and Managing Partner of Aurora Media Holdings, in a statement. Due to the success of the previous two editions, this year's SAFF Project Market will feature up to 15 projects. With 2017 Singapore Media Festival focusing on the world's fourth largest nation, Indonesia, 5 of the projects will hail from said country. The final 15 projects will be selected by international film industry experts: Chan Gin Kai, Executive Producer of Silver Media Group / Chairman of the Southeast Asian Audio-Visual Association (SAAVA); Kristina Trapp, CEO of European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs (EAVE); Marco Mueller, Artistic Director, Pingyao Film Festival; Krishnan Rajagopalan, Founder, Laughing Elephant (and Co-Founder, HOOQ). Submissions can be made on ScreenSingapore's official website.
Previous winners of SAFF Project Market include Malaysia's 42nd Pictures Bea Tanaka and Yasu Tanaka, who won the Aurora Producing Award for "Terbalik" and received an investment of SGD20,000 from Singapore's Aurora Media Holdings for their project production; and Vietnam's Skyline Media producer Trinh Le Minh Hang, who received the Imaginex Studios Audio Post Production Award for "Mamafia" from Imaginex Studios and Basecamp Films, which consists of a full audio post-production package worth SGD50,000) for the feature film. Held by ScreenSingapore in partnership with the Southeast Asian Audio-Visual Association (SAAVA), SAFF Project Market aims to match promising feature-length projects with a global network of media financiers, distributors, and collaborators to bring these projects to fruition. SAFF Project Market is part of the annual summit, Southeast Asian Film Financing Forum (SAFF), held during the Singapore Media Festival. The summit also consists of Ties That Bind, an international co-production program that assists European and Asian producers through group work and mentorship by some of the world's foremost experts, and the SAFF Film Financing Conference, a full-day event that shows producers how to successfully assemble the various forms of financing to get their films made. SAFF Project Market 2017 will be held at Marina Bay Sands Singapore from this 29 November to 1 December. (Photo source: Singapore Media Festival)