December 05, 2008

Singapore Movie Script Wins Award At Golden Horse Film And TV Co-Production Conference

By News Desk

Singapore's effort in the regional movie industry took a step forward as Jack Neo's company, Neo Studios Pte Ltd won an award for one of the top three scripts short-listed at the Golden Horse Film and TV Co-production Conference in Taipei, Taiwan yesterday. Blog Stories, a movie to be released in mid-2009 competed against 24 other movie scripts sent in from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Blog Stories was the only submission from Singapore that secured a place in the finals. The prize for the award involves a sum of NT$200k.

Said Mr Jack Neo, Chairman of Neo Studios, "I am delighted. This proves that Singaporeans possess creative talent comparable with the best in the region. I am very grateful that our regional colleagues have given us this recognition."

Blog Stories is a thriller about bloggers competing for popularity on the internet. With bloggers from all over Asia competing, young people begin to publish "ghost stories" online but in doing so, became reckless in their competition for pageviews and cyber popularity. Strange things begin to happen in real life when the bloggers get carried away by unbridled ego and pride.

Said Ms Peggy Chiao, Chair of the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, "Blog Stories is an interesting script that involves co-production and creative talent from more than one country. Our objective is to encourage a higher number of films to be made and submissions are judged based on its potential viability to be commercially produced and marketed. We are pleased to see a high quality script submission from Singapore."

Moving with MDA's direction to nurture Singapore's media industry, Neo Studios had been putting in a consistent effort to develop the pool of commercially savvy script writers and movie directors. Since the company began its effort to identify talent earlier this year, more than 50 aspiring movie directors and script writers had submitted their works for evaluation. Said Mr Philip Wu, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Neo Studios, "Jack's effort to share his experience with the next generation of talent requires no small amount of personal passion, commitment and sacrifice on his part. We trust that movie fans will reap the benefit and be happy to welcome more new faces scripting and directing Singaporean movies in Neo Studios' movies in 2009."

Mr Seto Lok Yin, Assistant Chief Executive Officer (Industry), Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA) said, "We applaud Neo Studios' success at the Golden Horse. MDA supports of Jack's efforts to train and groom the next generation of movie directors and script-writers. This win is a meaningful milestone for Singapore."

Added Mr Neo, "Blog Stories revolves around current youth lifestyle and trends. We will draw upon the creative talent of more than one country. We are in the process of finalizing various production partners and investors and will have a rather creative marketing execution to hopefully make this a production that will travel beyond Singapore."