U.Okay.- and Hong Kong-based firm Phoenix Waters Prods. has formally partnered with Hong Kong’s Agog Movies to create Phoenix Waters Asia, a brand new enterprise aimed toward rising content material manufacturing in Asia.
The enterprise was introduced on the sidelines of a movie funding convention held Tuesday in Hong Kong on the FilMart rights market, the place Phoenix Waters Prods. CEO Bizhan Tong was a speaker.
The 2 corporations beforehand collaborated on “Chungking Mansions,” an formidable pan-Asian motion movie on which Tong is director, and where production was previously scheduled for last year. Tong informed Selection that lensing will begin later this yr, “after deal with any points that would hinder filming in Hong Kong.”
Phoenix Waters Asia expects to develop and produce a full slate of latest initiatives beginning this summer season. It can broaden from its present focus in Hong Kong to include extra Asia territories, starting with Japan and Korea.
Motion thriller “Hostage Disaster” is predicted to be a part of the brand new slate. It can function Hong Kong actors together with an ensemble of U.S. and U.Okay. thespians.
Phoenix Waters’ Tong and Agog Movies CEO Man Orlebar will collectively run Phoenix Waters Asia as co-CEOs, with Tong additionally working as chief content material officer and Orlebar as chief funding officer.
Tong may also be a part of Orlebar to co-manage the three media funds by means of an asset administration firm in Hong Kong, strengthening the funds’ potential to supply extremely diversified slates of media initiatives from throughout the area.
The funds — New Asia Ferrell Discretionary Media Mission Fund, New Asia Ferrell Non-Discretionary Media Mission Fund and New Asia Ferrell Media Infrastructure PE Fund — had been first unveiled final yr. The primary two funds spend money on precise film and TV initiatives. The third fund invests into corporations instantly, reasonably than initiatives. (Moreover, the discretionary fund is shaped from combining the motion, sci-fi and IP funds that was introduced one yr earlier.)
Tong, a former banker turned filmmaker, is presently in post-production on each his official Asian remake of Richard Linklater’s “Tape” and Mitchell Tolliday’s upcoming horror comedy “Homicide Ballads.” His new crime sequence “Forensic Psychologist” is presently being promoted at FilMart and is to be launched later this yr.
