Animation Industry: Ten-Year Project Finds Funding via 2023 Market
Singaporean director credits a single meeting at the Tokyo International Film Festival content market for securing the Italian partners needed to finish his Annecy-winning film.
By Jonathan Ramirez ·
The animated feature 'The Violinist' required a decade to move from initial concept to finished product, a timeline that Singaporean filmmaker Ervin Han described as a story of long-term friendship.
Han, who serves as co-founder and CEO of Robot Playground Media, identified a specific 2023 meeting at TIFFCOM as the turning point for the project's financing. During that visit, he connected with Italian producer Cristiano Bortone and his team at Altri Occhi, who subsequently joined the project as co-producers.
The film recently claimed the top prize at France's Annecy International Animation Film Festival, a victory that Han attributed to the structural support provided by these international partners.
Speaking at a panel titled 'Anime's New Frontier: Structuring & Financing International Co-Productions,' Han noted that his role as a producer and co-director made the promotional phase of the film's release more difficult than the production process itself.
The panel, moderated by Into Global program manager Kawano Masao, gathered industry leaders to discuss how international co-productions function most effectively when overseas partners are engaged during the development phase rather than just before release.
Ilan Urroz, CEO of France's Foliascope, emphasized that regulatory frameworks in Europe support this collaborative model. He cited French rules requiring streaming services to reinvest at least 20% of their French revenue into local or European-language original content, a figure that rises to 25% for platforms releasing films within 12 months of their theatrical debut.
Urroz identified Netflix, Disney+, Crunchyroll, Prime Video, and HBO Max as the primary platforms subject to these investment obligations. Sakurai Taiki, CEO of Salamander Inc., added that human relationships remain the central asset in these negotiations, stating that partners are the key to success.
Han returned to the market this year to pitch 'A Banquet for Hungry Ghosts,' a new animated feature involving partners from Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Ireland.
