Tokyo: TIFFCOM Content Market Returns With Renewed Momentum, Bigger Venue
Opening its doors on Wednesday for its first in-person event since 2019, the TIFFCOM content market in Tokyo is celebrating its 20th-anniversary edition in a new venue and with an even more international flavor to its exhibitors.
“In terms of the exhibition area, it is now almost 50-50, compared to 60 percent domestic and 40 percent overseas in 2019,” says Yasushi Shiina, TIFFCOM CEO. “The number of visitors from abroad will also increase to more than 280 invitees and more than 1,000 if other overseas visitors are included.”
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Running for three days until Oct. 27 across four floors of the Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Trade Center Hamamatsucho, the market is showcasing film, television and IP from Japan, Asia and across the globe.
Recently renovated, the new venue was the “perfect choice,” given its proximity to the main festival venues and accessibility from major airports and bullet train stations, says Shiina.
Among the more than 320 booths are sizable contingents in pavilions from Cambodia, China, Italy, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. As with the film lineup for the Tokyo International Film Festival, the return of a significant Chinese presence is a welcome development for the market.
Shiina also hails an event lineup, “rich in variety, with particular emphasis on the animation seminars.” Among the highlights are the anime-focused discussions: The Truth Behind the Overseas Expansion Of Suzume and About TOEI Animations’ Overseas Strategy.
Adding a timely boost to TIFFCOM’s credentials as a place where genuine international business is done, China’s Road Pictures is unveiling a big expansion into leveraging Japanese IP through a new venture. The distributor scored major box-office hits this year in China with Suzume from Makoto Shinkai (Your Name) and Toei’s The First Slam Dunk.
Continuing with the Japanese IP leverage theme, a new Tokyo Story Market initiative focuses on selling the rights for manga and novels for film adaptations overseas, with four of the biggest domestic publishers participating — Kadokawa, Kodansha, Shogakukan and Shueisha.
“We hope that overseas producers looking for original stories will be very interested in this,” says Shiina.
After three years online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Tokyo Gap-Financing Market (TGFM) will finally be able to bring producers, distributors, sales agents, broadcasters and financiers together in person. Among the 15 projects selected for this year’s TGFM are four Japanese productions with leading directors attached. Those include a project with Kazuya Shiraishi, director of the police-yakuza gangster tale The Blood of Wolves, which won Koji Yakusho (Perfect Days) the best actor prize at the 2019 Asian Film Awards.
On holding the first physical event in four years, Shiina says, “We look forward to providing a place for visitors from all over the world to meet and exchange ideas in Tokyo.”
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