TIFFCOM’s Tokyo Gap Financing Market (TGFM) is launching project awards for the first time, along with a series of talks aimed at producers seeking international co-production.
Awards will include the Tokyo Projects Award, worth $13,300 (JPY2M), selected by an industry jury; the Asian Gen‑Z Award, worth $3,300 (JPY500,000), chosen by a committee of Gen-Z film students; as well as in-kind awards from leading Asian post-production houses White Light and Kongchak.
The ‘TIFFCOM TGFM 2025 Awards Ceremony’ will be held on October 31 at Tokyo Midtown Hibiya.
In addition, TGFM will host the TGFM Morning Sessions, comprising seminars targeting filmmakers pursuing international co-productions, to be held on the second and third mornings of the market. The first edition of Morning Sessions will host two seminars: Project Market Talk and Fund Talk.
Project Market Talk speakers include Tania Morissette, deputy director of Frontières International Co-Production Market; HKIFF Industry director Jacob Wong; and Venice Production Bridge head Pascal Diot. Fund Talk speakers are Arte France Cinema’s Remi Burah, Aleksandra Zakharchenko, head of Cannes Marché Industry Programs; and Munthir Altuwayrib, Red Sea Fund Legal and Financial Supervisor.
This year’s TGFM (October 29-31), which enables part-financed projects to meet potential investors to close the last tranche of financing, has selected 23 projects, of which 17 are live-action and six are animation projects.
The line-up includes several projects from Southeast Asia, such as Four Seasons In Java from Indonesia’s Kamila Andini; 1982 from Vietnam’s Diep Nguyen Hoang; and two projects from the Philippines – Filipinana directed by Rafael Manuel and Hum, directed by Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan and produced by Alemberg Ang.
Last year’s TGFM projects included Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s Morte Cucina, which is playing in this year’s TIFF competition, and Mariko Tetsuya’s Dear Stranger, a co-production between Japan, France, U.S. and UK, which played in Busan and will screen at Tokyo International Film Festival in the Nippon Cinema Now section.
AloJapan.com