ITV

Tag: Platform

  • Japanese production house to be honoured at Locarno Filmfest

    Japanese production house to be honoured at Locarno Filmfest

    NEW DELHI: Japanese company Office Kitano will be honoured with a tribute that recognizes the most significant players on the international independent production scene.

     

    The Locarno Festival is slated to take place from 5 – 15 August.

     

    Founded in 1988 as a theatrical agency, Office Kitano was created to answer the need to manage the TV activities of Takeshi Kitano and a group of comic actors linked to him. In 1991 it became a production company with A Scene at the Sea, Kitano’s third feature film, and since then has produced all of the actor-director’s films.

     

    Under its president Masayuki Mori, the company also started producing other Japanese directors, starting with Hiroshi Shimizu’s Ikinai (1998). During those same years, Shôzô Ichiyama joined forces with the company; Ichiyama had already worked with Kitano on his first feature, Violent Cop (1989) and co-produced three films by Hou Hsiao-hsien.

     

    In 2000 the company began an inspired collaboration with JIA Zhang-ke. The first film was Platform (2000), which was followed by Unknown Pleasures (2002), The World (2004), 24 City (2008), A Touch of Sin (2013) and Mountains May Depart (2015).

     

    In 2001 the company produced Delbaran, a film by the Iranian director Abolfazl Jalili, which was selected for Locarno’s Concorso internazionale where it won the Special Jury Prize.

     

    In addition to producing and distributing a range of films, in 2000 Office Kitano launched Tokyo FILMeX, a film festival created to raise the profile of independent production.

     

    Festival artistic director Carlo Chatrian said, “With the decision to pay tribute to Office Kitano’s twenty years of activity, the Festival is choosing a territory and a company in which it has a particular interest. Not only because we love the Japanese actor-director’s productions but also because of the studio’s stated desire to support young Japanese filmmakers, and work with other major directors, such as JIA Zhang-ke. An award is both a recognition for the work they have done and an encouragement to continue in the path they have chosen: both are completely appropriate in the case of Office Kitano, to whom we wish a brilliant future.”

     

    Office Kitano president Masayuki Mori and producer Shôzô Ichiyama will be at Locarno to receive the award.

     

    Three films will be shown at the Festival to mark this tribute: Hana-bi (1997) and Dolls (2002), both directed by Takeshi Kitano, and JIA Zhang-ke’s Unknown Pleasures. 

  • Socialsamosa.com to host ‘Social Media Mentoring’ session for start-ups

    Socialsamosa.com to host ‘Social Media Mentoring’ session for start-ups

    MUMBAI: 15 experts over five days will give an insight to businesses on the new tool of communication: social media. Conducted by Socialsamosa.com starting 21 October, the social media mentoring session aims at aiding start-up companies with an opportunity to enjoy a private 30 minute session with a social media expert from within the industry.

    With social media transforming into serious business and a platform to engage and retain customers along with being cost effective, small business entrepreneurs are adopting it instantly. The social media mentoring session will help companies in finding answers to the ever changing and evolving platform.

    Speaking on the event Socialsamosa.com co-founder Aditya Gupta said, “Start-ups are often overwhelmed with the growing number of social platforms and fail to strategise and create power packed campaigns that can lead to fulfillment of crucial business goals. For instance, Myntra derives a good amount of its web traffic through social media and likewise e-commerce start-ups can boost their footprints too. To facilitate this process we have initiated private mentoring sessions which I believe can truly build social media marketing direction for any start-up brand.”

    Participating companies can choose slots between 11 am and 3 pm during the five days of the session. 45 start-ups can choose a slot and a speaker depending on the area of expertise and business strengths.  So for those interested in understanding how listening, monitoring or analysing social conversations can help their business, can book a slot with someone working with analytics tool/platform.

    Socialsamosa.com co-founder Ankita Gaba added, “We realise that there is a need within the start-up ecology to understand and acquire a thorough understanding of social platforms and hence we have organised this knowledge sharing activity through Social Samosa school, our sub-portal. The private hangout will ensure a healthy interaction through a two way knowledge sharing and building exercise. We did a twangout [combination of live Google hangout and tweets] with Harshil Karia on how startups can use social media. But that was one to many, one expert answering multiple questions of multiple start-ups. This time we have gone beyond the general sharing of knowledge and moved to business specific mentoring, ensuring a highly personalised brand experience.”

  • ‘CBGB’ film to premiere on DirecTV ahead of theatrical release

    MUMBAI: CBGB, a film about the New York nightclub where US punk rock music was born, is to premiere on DirecTV, the satellite company announced recently.

     

    Directed by Randall Miller and starring Alan Rickman, Malin Akerman, Ashley Greene and Rupert Grint, the film will debut 5 September and air through 2 October, prior to its theatrical release set for 11 October.

    “By providing exclusive, premium content in an earlier window we can offer our customers an entertainment experience they can‘t find anywhere else,” said DirecTV VP marketing Alex Kaplan. “At the same time filmmakers have a new platform with 20 million viewers to distribute their work. We‘re excited to work with XLrator Media to give our customers an exclusive look atCBGB before it hits theaters.”

     

    “We are delighted to be working with DirecTV and applaud them for putting forth this innovative program for top independent films,” said XLrator Media CEO Barry Gordon.

     

    “Movie-watching habits have evolved, and consumers will always drive the market. DirecTV’s exclusive program is both consumer and filmmaker friendly. CBGB will have access to an enormous national platform coupled with massive marketing and promotional support, and consumers will have an opportunity to see a great movie before it hits theaters.”

     

    “This is totally punk,” Miller said. “We are excited to get the movie out in the most exciting way! 20 million people getting to talk about the film and enjoy it at home… I have one word, ‘awesome!‘”

  • Mobile streaming platform Zenga TV looks to double revenues

    Mobile streaming platform Zenga TV looks to double revenues

    MUMBAI: Zenga Media, the mobile and web streaming company, has set itself an ambitious target of doubling its revenues in the current financial year.

    Zenga Media, which owns the mobile and web streaming platform Zenga TV, is promoted by former Sony TV executive Shabir Momin and Vikramjiet Roy.

    Shabir Momin, the MD and CTO of Zenga TV, says that the company‘s total revenue in the last fiscal was in the region of $2-3 million.

    According to Momin, the company has turned RoI (Return on Investment) positive in the last two fiscals and is paying for its own expenses.

    “The promoters did not have to infuse funds in the company as it is RoI positive,” he adds.

    No equity divestment is planned either, rather the aim is to grow the company before exploring fund raising avenues.

    Zenga TV is an ad-supported mobile and web streaming platform. It claims to have 22-23 million active users every month. Zenga‘s biggest differentiator, according to Momin, is that it is compatible with even feature phones and the technology is in-house.

    The digital streaming platform has content partnerships with the NDTV group, Times Television Network, BAG Network, Reliance Broadcast Network, and Raj TV Network.

    However, the big three television networks Star India, Zee Network, and MSM are missing from the platform. The Viacom18 channels too are no longer available on the platform.

    “While we don‘t have Star, Zee and Sony, we do have a lot international channels in our offering. Over and above that, we also produce content in various genres for our platform,” he avers.

    The absence of these powerful networks from Zenga TV means that the platform‘s entertainment bouquet is a a bit of a non-starter.

    However, Zenga TV has strong news offering with the presence of NDTV, Times Now, CNBC TV18, Aaj Tak and Headlines Today amongst others.

    News is one of the most consumed genres on mobile after entertainment and movies, says Momin. After news, the sports genre has a lot of traction among mobile TV consumers.

    However, the cost of acquiring sports rights makes it an unviable proposition to monetise, reveals Momin. After flirting with IPL rights in 2009, Zenga gave it up as it discovered it could not recoup its investments.

    “It‘s better to be profitable rather than taking risks with cricket rights,” he asserts.

    Zenga TV generally does 50-50 revenue share deals with broadcasters which means that its content costs is zilch. However, monetising content through advertisement is still not that easy a task.

    Reason: The ad spends on mobile are still very low compared to the kind of reach that it delivers. However, Momin is optimistic. His optimism stems from the predictions that mobile ad spends are expected to grow to Rs 3 billion by 2015 up from the current Rs 1.5 billion.

    Zenga TV plans to play the volume game by being a free content platform. Going pay is not a good option as one has to be at the mercy of telecom operators, who dictate terms to platform owners on revenue share, points out Momin.

  • Ganesh Jain re-elected president of IFT

    Ganesh Jain re-elected president of IFT

    MUMBAI: Ganesh Jain, one of the six directors of the music records & tapes industry, has been re-elected as the president of Indian Council of Impex for Films & TV Programmers (IFT) at a meeting held recently.

    Talking on the re-election, members of the IFT commented, “We have elected Ganesh Jain yet again as his leadership is unquestionable. He rejoins us with more and different experiences under his belt which will serve our council, our people and our ambitions well.

    Talking of his re-election Jain shares, “Indeed it is a platform one should take advantage of. It is one of the premium places for doing the business of buying & selling of films of all languages.”