Canadian Frontières makes Asian debut via Tokyo market partnership
Developed over time first seen 2 months ago
The Tokyo Gap Financing Market (TGFM), running alongside the TIFFCOM contents market, has unveiled its 2026 line-up of 24 feature film projects from Asia, Europe and the Americas, including five selected through a new partnership with Canada's Frontières Market. The tie-up, organised by the Fantasia International Film Festival, marks Frontières' first showcase in Asia, with the market's deputy director Tania Morissette describing it as an opportunity to connect genre filmmaking communities and open doors for emerging projects. TGFM supports films already in the funding stage, requiring at least 60% of budget secured and an Asian production element.
Frontières-backed titles include Vietnamese director Diep Nguyen Hoang's The Saddest Stories On Earth and a body-horror feature from Brazil's Gabriela Amaral Almeida. The wider selection spans genres and territories, featuring Boo Junfeng's Singapore-produced thriller Trinity, Vincci Cheuk's Hong Kong-Japan co-production 38.83, and an animated horror omnibus from the team behind Annecy prizewinner The Violinist, alongside three projects backed by a continuing partnership with Italy's Cinecittà. For the first time, an open pitch event, supported by Imagica Group, will let 10 of the 24 projects present directly to industry delegates. TGFM runs 28-30 October at Tokyo Port City Takeshiba Port Studio, within the broader Tokyo International Film Festival period of 26 October to 4 November.
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In short
- TGFM's 2026 line-up includes 24 projects, five via Canada's Frontières Market
- Partnership marks Frontières' first showcase in Asia
- TGFM runs 28-30 October in Tokyo alongside TIFFCOM and the film festival
How this story developed
- 2 months ago Organisers have now detailed the line-up, confirming five Frontières-backed titles, including Diep Nguyen Hoang's The Saddest Stories On Earth and a body-horror feature from Gabriela Amaral Almeida, and unveiling a first-ever open pitch event on 28 October at Tokyo Port City Takeshiba, alongside a separate three-project Cinecittà co-production strand.
- 2 months ago The Tokyo Gap-Financing Market has announced a first-time tie-up with Canada's Frontières Market, run by the Fantasia International Film Festival, to add a dedicated horror and thriller strand to its expanded 24-project seventh edition at October's TIFFCOM event in Tokyo.
Full account
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
From the full account, which is AI-written from the sources:
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).
Explained simply
The Tokyo Gap Financing Market (TGFM) is a financing and pitching event held alongside the larger Tokyo International Film Festival, where filmmakers present projects still seeking funding to potential industry backers. Frontières Market is a similar platform run out of Canada's Fantasia International Film Festival, focused specifically on genre films such as horror, thriller and fantasy. The two markets have now teamed up, marking Frontières' first appearance in Asia.
This matters because it signals growing links between genre-film industries in different parts of the world, giving filmmakers from places like Vietnam and Brazil a route to Asian financiers and co-production partners, and vice versa. It also reflects a broader trend of film markets forming partnerships to widen their pool of projects and investors, rather than operating in isolation.
The wider TGFM 2026 event brings together dozens of projects from Asia, Europe and the Americas, alongside separate long-running ties with Italy's Cinecittà, underlining Tokyo's ambition to position itself as a hub connecting international genre and independent film financing.
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