Malaysian project "Somewhere in the South" takes top prize at Taipei pitching awards
A Malaysian feature project, Somewhere in the South, has won the $35,000 Feature Film Grand Award at the Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF) pitching awards in Taipei, according to Variety.
The prize is a cash award for a film still in development, so no finished movie exists yet. It is backed by the Taiwan Creative Content Agency, which runs the festival, and France's National Center for Cinema, known as the CNC. The festival ran from 6 to 9 November 2026.
The film is written and directed by Tan Ce Ding and produced by Anthony Chen, the Singaporean director of Ilo Ilo, which won the Caméra d'Or, the Cannes prize for a first feature, in 2013. Chen's company Giraffe Pictures, based in Singapore, is producing alongside Evil Genius Studio. TCCF's own listing describes the project as a Malaysia-Singapore co-production and credits Chen as executive producer.
Pitching works like a speed-dating round for film money. Producers present a project to sales agents, buyers and funders, and prizes like this one can help a project get the financing and partners it needs to be made. Many projects pitched at festivals like this take years to reach screens, if they reach them at all.
Other top winners included the series Saga, from BiZ Productions and Elephant Story, the animated project Wilderness of the Greenriver from Eddy Cinéma, and the documentary A Day's Worth from Singing Cicadas. Variety also reported that Reunion Dinner, from Make A Deal International Production, won three awards: the Videoland Ingenuity Award, the MPA Asia Pacific Grand Award and the NAFF award. NAFF is the Network of Asian Fantastic Films project market, held at South Korea's Bucheon festival.
Saving Tuvalu, produced by Media Stockade and Filmtank, took the Hakka Public Communication Foundation Confluence Award and the Taiwan Mobile Content Power Award.
The festival's pitching slate covered 92 project and story pitches across film, series, animation, documentary, publishing and comics-related work, according to Variety. TCCF also said over 100 booths sold out on the first day of booth sales, and that Korea's KOCCA would debut a Korea Pavilion there, with participants from France, Thailand, the Philippines and Hong Kong.
For Asian filmmakers, the value of an event like this lies in the people in the room. A pitch that wins a prize gets a second look from buyers who might otherwise have passed. Whether Somewhere in the South reaches a cinema screen will depend on the financing, casting and shooting schedule that follow, none of which has been announced.
