The animated feature The Violinist, which won the top prize at this year’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival, owes its international shape to a single meeting. Singaporean filmmaker Ervin Han told a TIFFCOM panel that a meeting at the Tokyo content market in 2023 brought Italian co-producers onto the film that would go on to win Annecy’s Cristal for Best Feature Film.
The Violinist (Credits: Robot Playground Media / TV ON Producciones / Altri Occhi)
The TIFFCOM 2023 meeting that built The Violinist
Han, co-founder and CEO of Singapore’s Robot Playground Media, spoke at “Anime’s New Frontier: Structuring & Financing International Co-Productions,” a session at TIFFCOM, the content market of the Tokyo International Film Festival. On his first visit to TIFFCOM, Han met Italian producer Cristiano Bortone and his team at Altri Occhi — a relationship built on trust that eventually developed into a full co-production partnership, with the Italians joining as co-producers.
“TGFM created the opportunity for meaningful conversations rather than immediate deals,” Han later explained of the Tokyo Gap-Financing Market connection. The film ultimately became a Singapore-Spain-Italy co-production between Robot Playground Media, TV ON Producciones and Altri Occhi, co-directed by Han and Spain’s Raúl García.
Annecy triumph and an extraordinary 2026 run
At this year’s Annecy festival, The Violinist became the first Singapore-led animated feature to win the Cristal for a Feature Film, the festival’s highest honor, and also picked up the SACEM Award for Best Original Soundtrack, recognizing the evocative score by Ricky Ho and Isabel Latorre with lead violin by Singapore’s Joy Yong. The film has since entered the Official Selection of TIFF’s 2026 Centrepiece program and opened in Singapore cinemas on September 17, 2026.
The story unfolds across five decades, from 1932 to 1982, blending an intimate musical tale with an epic war history — with the flame of music guiding the way.
A Banquet for Hungry Ghosts: Han’s next project
Han returned to TIFFCOM this year as a producer to pitch his next film: A Banquet for Hungry Ghosts, an animated feature anthology about food, horror and temptation with partners from Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia and Ireland. The panel’s broader takeaway, echoed by other speakers, was that international anime co-productions work best when overseas partners come aboard early — with financing, deal structures and rights all considered from development onward.
Source: Variety — read the full story there.
