Director Arvin Belarmino will be gracing the upcoming 5th Tokyo Gap-Financing Market (TGFM) at the Tokyo International Film Festival’s (TIFF) affiliated market, TIFFCOM, with his film Ria.
Serving as Belarmino’s debut feature, the film revolves around a folk-punk musician with a chronically ill foster mother trying to make ends meet by meddling in the illegal porn industry. It was part of the 2022 Festival De Cannes Cinéfondation La Residence selection, where it won the Centre National du Cinema (CNC) award at the festival’s Residence Pitch Session.
Ria will be joining the TGFM alongside other feature-length films, including 9 Temples to Heaven by Sompot Chidgasornpongse, Before Anyone Else by Tetsuya Mariko, Cold Enough For Snow by Jemima James, Container by Quan Luong, The Dog Is Barking by Vajiko Chachkhiani, The Moon is Watching by Naoko Watanabe, Morte Cucina by Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Number 4 Killer by Jun Li, Strangers in Kyoto by Masanori Tominaga, Where The Mountain Women Sing by Juefang Zhang, Batik Girlby Irwan Junaidy, The Drifting Room by Zhang Kang, Nightling by Rasmus A. Sivertsen, and Wildheart by Marceau Nakayama.
With TGFM as a platform for feature-length film projects in the financing stage, TIFFCOM provides filmmakers with one-on-one meeting opportunities with industry professionals, helping support project development and financing. TIFFCOM 2024 will run from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1 at the Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Trade Center Hamamatsucho-Kan.
