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Tokyo's TIFFCOM content market has entered into a first-time partnership with Frontières, the genre-oriented co-production market operated by Canada's Fantasia International Film Festival, folding a run of horror and thriller projects into the seventh edition of the Tokyo Gap-Financing Market (TGFM). The 2026 selection totals 24 feature projects drawn from territories spanning Asia, Europe and the Americas. To qualify, a project must already have secured at least 60% of its budget and contain an Asian element, with TGFM pairing selected teams with industry figures for one-on-one meetings intended to close remaining financing gaps.

Five of the 24 projects make up the newly created Frontières Showcase, marking the Montreal-based market's first outing in Asia. Tania Morissette, Frontières' deputy director, welcomed the tie-up as a chance to link genre filmmaking communities across the two markets and open fresh opportunities for developing projects. Titles in the showcase include The Saddest Stories on Earth, from Vietnamese director Diep Nguyen Hoang, who returns to TGFM for a second year running after bringing the Busan-selected 1982 in 2025, and a body-horror feature from Brazil's Gabriela Amaral Almeida, a filmmaker whose earlier work has previously screened in the Tokyo International Film Festival's competition line-up. Elsewhere in the broader 24-strong slate, genre fare includes Trinity, a thriller from Singapore's Boo Junfeng produced with SEAFIC founder Raymond Phathanavirangoon, and The Land of Jinn, an Indonesian project from newcomer director Kevin Rahardjo and production house KawanKawan Media, adapted from a Kyrgyz legend.

Animation accounts for five of this year's projects, headlined by an anthology horror work from the team behind The Violinist, winner of the top prize at this year's Annecy International Animation Film Festival. TGFM's separate collaboration with Italy's Cinecittà, now in its third year since launching in 2024, contributes three further projects, including Italian-Japanese co-productions. A new element for this edition is a partnership with Imagica Group to stage TGFM's first open pitch event, to be held on the afternoon of 28 October, at which ten of the 24 projects — including all five Frontières Showcase entries — will present to industry attendees.

TGFM runs from 28 to 30 October at the Tokyo Port City Takeshiba Port Studio, alongside TIFFCOM, while the wider Tokyo International Film Festival takes place from 26 October to 4 November across venues in Ginza. Coverage of the announcement varies in emphasis: one report dwells on the depth of Japanese involvement in the programme, noting that domestic producers or backers are attached to roughly half the selected projects, and details additional animation and Cinecittà titles alongside directors' prior credits, while another sets out a fuller project-by-project listing with directors and production companies, including titles such as the Hong Kong-Japan co-production 38.83, and gives more prominence to the market's scheduling and venue logistics.

Where outlets differ

One account emphasises Japan's role as producer or co-producer on around half the 24 projects and gives fuller biographical detail on individual directors (e.g. Uchiyama Takuya's Berlin-screened prior film, Moriyama Ayumi's Pokémon background), details not present in the other report.

The other account provides a complete itemised project list with directors and production companies (including 38.83, Brackish Zone, Cher, Dig) and is more specific about TIFFCOM/TGFM venue and TIFF's own dates, which the first report omits.

Framing of scope differs slightly: one describes the selection as spanning '24 countries and regions' across Asia, Europe, South America and North America, while the other simply says Asia, Europe and the Americas.

Only one source notes the Cinecittà collaboration's link to Italy's Ministry of Culture (Directorate-General for Cinema and Audiovisual Media).

• variety.com
• deadline.com