DEVELOPMENT
Kudos Knight, the creative partnership between scripted producer Kudos and “Peaky Blinders” and “SAS Rogue Heroes” creator Steven Knight, has appointed “Sex Education” producer Rem Conway as development producer to spearhead their plans to grow a scripted production hub in the U.K.’s West Midlands region.
This new role is designed to support the Kudos Knight management team in developing a drama slate to be produced in Birmingham. Identifying and nurturing emerging local voices and proven writers from the area, Conway will work closely with the Kudos creative team with a particular focus on championing under-represented and previously unheard voices. Conway will be based in the new Kudos Knight office at the Minerva Works in Birmingham, part of Knight’s Digbeth Loc. Studios development.
Production has been completed on the first title from the Kudos Knight slate, BBC six-part drama “This Town,” which was filmed on location in Birmingham and Coventry and produced from Digbeth Loc. Studios.
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TRAINING
Netflix, in partnership with the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC), has launched a training program for emerging female talent that aims to introduce the creative filmmaking process and the different roles women can play behind the camera. The Women in Film: Introduction to the Creative Process initiative will offer insights into filmmaking industry and has been created for emerging women filmmakers graduating from film studies and interested in film residing in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the U.A.E. Some 45 women will be selected to take part in the program, designed as a series of workshops. Participants will be introduced to scriptwriting and the creative process of filmmaking by established female filmmakers from the Arab region.
The program will begin in November, with three days of workshops in Cairo, Dubai and Jeddah. All participants will also be provided with the opportunity to visit Netflix’s production hub in Europe early next year. Applications will open on the AFAC website on Aug. 17.
STREAMING
Akshay Bardapurkar and Vistas Media‘s Planet Marathi group will launch the Planet Bharat streaming platform in November. While the existing Planet Marathi service provides Marathi-language content, Planet Bharat will provide hyperlocal content across multiple Indian languages. It will be a hybrid model of SVOD, TVOD and AVOD and also aims to be a social entertainment platform with feature films, series, music, infotainment, non-fiction, social gaming and wallets.
FESTIVAL PRIZES
The Whanau Marama: New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF) this weekend presented prizes to its winning short films. The Wellington UNESCO City of Film Award for best film (NZ$3,000 cash prize) went to “The Last Sunday,” directed by Saito Lilo; the Letterboxd Audience Award (NZ$1,000 cash prize) went to “Mako, directed by Mark Papalii.” The jury also awarded special ,ention awards to the films “Kakako,” written and directed by Douglas Brooks, and “I Am Paradise,” written and directed by Hiona Henare.
The New Zealand’s Best 2023 Audience Award was given to “Anu,” directed by Pulkit Arora.
The NZIFF is held on staggered dates at multiple locations around the country, with the curtain coming down on Sept. 10 in Nelson.
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The ongoing Melbourne International Film Festival, which continues until Aug. 20, handed out its prizes for short films over the midway weekend. The City of Melbourne Grand Prix for best short film (A$12,500 cash prize) went to “F1ghting Looks Different 2 Me Now”; the VicScreen Erwin Rado Award for Best Australian Short Film (A$7,500 cash prize went to “Katele” (aka “Mudskipper”); the award for emerging Australian filmmaker (A$6,000 cash prize) went to “Hafekasi”; the award for best fiction short film (A$6,000 cash) went to “I Promise You Paradise”; the award for best documentary short film (A$6,000 cash) went to “Marungka Tjalatjunu” (aka “Dipped in Black”); while the award for best animation short (A$6,000 cash prize) went to “27” and the award for best experimental short film (A$6,000 cash) went to “Mast-del.”
MEDIA EARNINGS
Chinese game-centric live-streaming firm DouYu International announced second quarter financials that showed revenues decreased by 24% to RMB1.39 billion ($192 million), compared with RMB1.83 billion in the same period of 2022. But it achieved positive net income of RMB6.8 million ($900,000), compared with net losses of RMB38.8 million in the same period of 2022. Other important metrics, however, were weaker. Average mobile monthly average users were 50.3 million, compared with 55.7 million in the same period of 2022. And the number of quarterly average paying users fell to 4.0 million, compared with 6.6 million in the same period of 2022.
“We continued to foster the sustainable health of our game-centric community ecosystem. We focused on successfully maintaining our core users, launching more high-quality, highly interactive content to boost interactions in our community and further elevated the user experience,” said Chen Shaojie, CEO of DouYu, by way of explanation.
