feature film

By Teresa M. Ho

When you have searched for a certain type of production for decades, and you end up finding it in another country, far from your usual travels, you wonder… should I have travelled to Asia earlier?

In 2024 Christine and I made our plans to attend Asia TV Forum in Singapore. Having heard about it when we were in the midst of selling Hello (Again), it was a market that seemed untapped from the North American front. None of our colleagues knew anything about it, nor attended in the way that when you asked them about MIP or Cannes or Berlin/European Film Market they could tell you many experiences.

When Ontario Creates approved our funding for Global Market Travel, we were off! But then we were able to receive support from RESO’s Building Canada-Asia Pathways where we were shopping other projects in pre-development, and they helped with a curated experience at the market. We didn’t really know what to expect but the sessions with RESO helped lay the ground work. They curated a packed schedule of meetings with producers and regional commissioners to help us understand the Asian market.

From the SAVAA IP Accelerator came a number of projects that I was set up to meet. But the one I was most interested in was one called Kungfuland. Billed as a Kungfu comedy feature film, I was really interested to see how an Asian director/producer would bring authenticity to an age-old genre. But what to do… I was over-scheduled at ATF and had two conflicting meetings with Kungfuland.

The first morning of ATF, I went to the organizers. I want to meet the Kungfuland people, but we couldn’t find a time to sync a meeting. The organizer asked me if I wanted to meet him on the spot. I told him I had 10 minutes until the next meeting. I joined Jacen Tan at his table, and the rest is history!

We are so pleased to announce KUNGFULAND in Singapore. Announced on Deadline and then with an interview in Playback. Being the first Feature length Singapore-Canada treaty co-production was achieved by lots of late night meetings, discussions across time zones and discussions amongst IMDA, Telefilm Canada, and the Trade Commission of Canada in Singapore. You can’t have these types of collaborations without having many interested parties to help shepherd the project along. Indie projects are hard, across territories and country lines are even harder.

With more to come as we go through the remaining days on the shoot and into post production. We’ll have more news to share in the months to come.

Supported by Infocomm Media Development Authority; Virtual Production Services by AUX INFINITE STUDIOS; Executive Producer: ENIGMATIG PTE. LTD; Produced with the Participation of TELEFILM CANADA; Made possible with the support of the ONTARIO CREATES

https://deadline.com/2026/06/singapore-canada-co-pro-kungfuland-idrissa-sanogo-emma-wong-1236952455

https://playbackonline.ca/2026/07/17/producers-see-opportunity-in-working-with-singapore/