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A FILM BY RYÛSUKE HAMAGUCHI EVIL DOES NOT EXIST Takumi and his daughter Hana live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. Like generations before them, they live a modest life according to the cycles and order of nature. One day, the village inhabitants become aware of a plan to build a glamping site near Takumi’s house; offering city residents a comfortable ‘escape’ to nature. When two company representatives from Tokyo arrive in the village to hold a meeting, it becomes clear that the project will have a negative impact on the local water supply, causing unrest. The agency’s mismatched intentions endanger both the ecological balance of the nature plateau and their way of life, with an aftermath that affects Takumi’s life. GENRE: Drama CERTIFICATE: PG DIRECTOR: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi FEATURING: Hitoshi Omika, Ryo Nishikawa, Ryuji Kosaka, Ayaka Shibutani DURATION: 106 min COUNTRY: Japan YEAR: 2023 LANGUAGES: Japanese RELEASE DATE: TBC

A FILM BY BAS DEVOS HERE Stefan, a Romanian construction worker living in Brussels, is on the verge of moving back home. He cooks up a big pot of soup with leftovers in his fridge, to hand out as a goodbye gift to friends and family. As he is ready to go, he meets a Belgian-Chinese young woman who works in a little restaurant while preparing a doctorate on mosses. Her attention for the near-invisible stops him in his tracks. GENRE: Drama CERTIFICATE: PG DIRECTOR: Bas Devos FEATURING: Stefan Gota & Liyo Gong DURATION: 82 mins COUNTRY: Belgium YEAR: 2023 LANGUAGES: Dutch/French/Romanian/ Chinese RELEASE DATE: TBC

by Vincent Quek, originally published by Perspectives Film Festival 2022 Time is life’s ultimate currency. What we do with it – often trading it for a manmade currency like money – usually requires rational thought on a constant basis. Life’s currency is not fair from person to person, for some have more than others, and even the ones with seemingly more time may have depreciative qualities, for example when sickness and accidents rear their unwelcome head, at any time during our lives. Movies traffic with your time. It offers you a measure of utility for your investment in it. For x number of minutes, it can entertain you, enable your escape from whatever else usually occupies you, or even educate you. Whatever the end effects, cinema will transport you to its maker’s imagination, or even sometimes to sleep(!) should the movie not be able to sustain your interest. Figure 1 The main still from Michelangelo Frammartino’s latest "Il Buco" One of the newest titles in our lineup – Il Buco (or The Hole, in Italian) by Italian director Michelangelo Frammartino understands this investment to a profound degree. Premiering in Perspectives Film Festival this year – a festival whose theme is also “time” – it ostensibly tells the story of a 1961 expedition by a group of young speleologists to a southern Italian Calabrian cave system, which through their intrepid explorations, was revealed to house the 3rd deepest cave in the world. But in the same movie, Frammartino also weaves in the story of a nameless cattle shepherd who watches these cave explorers from his home on the hills, at the tail end of his own life. He has observed the same cave system that so fascinates these young speleologists perhaps for his entire life. It is the juxtaposition of this caving expedition and this cattle shepherd’s life epilogue that the titular subject Il Buco becomes a metaphysical allegory for the journeys of discovery one embarks on during their time, be it physical, emotional, or spiritual, into the literal body or the body of the earth. For the hole is a symbol of the unknown, and every human quests with their available albeit unknown amount of allotted time, to learn all we can to fill in the answers towards life’s biggest questions. With Il Buco, Frammartino reminds us, that at the end of the day, explorations with your time are not wasted. It does not matter what motivates the cavers – are they driven by visceral curiosity, the promise of scientific and geologic accomplishment or sheer ego? Frammartino eschews any sense of personal back stories. Conversations during the movie between characters are sparse and deliberately left unsubtitled, but even an Italian speaker would not be able to discern any words exchanged as any dialogue blends into the sound mix as naturally as the environmental sounds in the movie. At the beginning of Il Buco, audiences are treated to the only explicitly subtitled portion of the film, which is newsreel footage of a television crew’s ascent of the then-newly constructed Pirelli Tower in Milan, still standing today. The news anchor proclaims wonder at the ability to gaze into the building, and off into the distance from their observational deck of an elevator outside the building, smoothly reaching heights of manmade scale. Funny then, but no less significant, is how the rest of the movie tracks a group’s progression into uncharted depths of natural, geologic scale. Figure 2 Charting the depths of the cave in Il Buco When speaking about time, I am fully aware that my company Anticipate Pictures too, traffics in your time. We offer these time sinks of content products, each seemingly longer than the last(!) (although I am happy to inform you that Il Buco ranks amongst some of the shortest movies on our lineup, at a compact 93 minutes.) On top of your investment of time, we even ask for an investment of money – something many people trade uncountable amounts of their life’s currency for – to access these products. Therefore, I take extraordinary care to acquire these products that hopefully you will find a good return on your investments. All 60 of our movies acquired over the last 6 years hopefully demonstrate this quality of care. I admit picking up Il Buco for theatrical distribution in Singapore was not an easy decision. Part of it was the problem of timing. When I first screened the movie, it was during the middle of the pandemic, and screener watching was restricted to computer screens. I have a laptop with a 13” screen, and this film’s impact really depends on how immersed its viewer is at the point of the encounter. Naturally, the all-encompassing cinema hall would be perfect for a movie like this, but as industry professionals without this luxury, we are supposed to extrapolate what we see on our laptop to the cathedrals of cinema halls, and this, even with years of experience, is something very hard to do, and films like Il Buco naturally suffer from cavalier laptop viewing. I did note that the movie was very special, but failing to grasp its theatrical quality, hastily turned the movie down at first. Figure 3 The vast beauty of the Italian landscape in "Il Buco" It was only after screening it again on a much larger screen – alas, still not in an actual cinema, but on a 65” TV – that I was struck by the sensitivity of Frammartino’s vision, and sold by it. Il Buco is ultimately his intellectual exploration of space in the bounded limits of our time here on Earth, told of the Earth, from within the Earth. The movie’s imagery is sweeping and grandiose in its portrayal of southern Italy’s beautiful Calabrian landscape, yet small and intimate especially when his protagonists squeeze into cracks to access ever-deeper caverns, or in the blink-and-you-will-miss it pulse on the dorsal of a shepherd’s hand. There is humour too, from a curious horse and one misplaced football. But overarchingly, it is his respect for your time as an audience if – and should you choose to – take this trip with him into Il Buco, that is the greatest mark of a considerate, sensitive contemporary filmmaker ripe for your discovery. Give Michelangelo Frammartino’s Il Buco 93 minutes of your time, and it will show you the world. Read an interview that Perspectives Film Festival did with Michelangelo Frammartino, Director of Il Buco here.

Dear fans and followers of Anticipate Pictures, I don't usually comment, and actually make it a point not to talk about our competition for your eyeballs on this official Anticipate Pictures channel (I usually do it on my own FB profile in various public posts,) but I'm going to make an exception today just because not only is this topic highly relevant to anybody living in the 2010s but I'll end off with some blunt marketing for our upcoming film LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT in 3D just to make it about Anticipate in the end. (My apologies to my marketing intern Hanae whom I previously instructed to do the same only to have her supervisor now breaking the same rules.) Deadline Hollywood, one of the film industry's leading trade news sites, published a business article today entitled "Feeling The Churn: Why Netflix Cancels Shows After A Couple Of Seasons & Why They Can't Move To New Homes" You'll read this with extreme interest if you are a fan of original TV shows on Netflix, which I'm sure many people including myself are, and come to realise the following: Legacy TV programs will never be made by SVOD streamers like Netflix, so your next all-time favourite legacy franchise shows like Friends, The Office, Parks And Recreation, The Simpsons will never be made at Netflix. In fact, if any new Netflix series gets very popular, unless it starts winning major awards like the Emmys, or be able to start some sort of secondary revenue stream for them in the form of theme parks or merchandising rights like Stranger Things was able to do - Netflix would much rather kill off its babies - and make sure their babies stay dead - than make more seasons of those increasingly-popular-but-not-yet-break-out TV shows. The new Netflix Originals logo So if your favourite TV show is a Netflix original and has a cult following but doesn't keep increasing its audience numbers exponentially with each and every season - which by the way won't ever be 13 episodes or more like those made by network TV i.e. NBC, CBS etc. because Netflix has determined from its data that 10 episodes is the absolute most needed to retain your eyeballs to that show - than it will be in danger of getting retired after 2-3 seasons. The reason is purely economical - it costs more and more to pay the same talent - writers, producers, actors etc. - to create more of a show the more successful it gets (an industry term called the "back-end." To the point where it no longer makes financial sense to pay the ever escalating talent and production costs to diminishing returns on new subscriber numbers, the show will be retired, even if the core fan base is rabid about the series. Netflix Original Sense8 - cancelled after 2 seasons, which after Netflix suffered intense backlash from fans, agreed to produce a further 2 1/2 hour series finale. As anyone who has spoken to me and solicited some opinion on the new streaming landscape (curiously so, since I run a mostly theatrical business) will know my opinion that Netflix is not in the business of selling good content, it is in the business of selling subscriptions. It does not make money from making good content, but if it makes just enough content with just enough quality to make you not want to quit your 1-month free trial - then it has won. Yes it's great that sometimes they make some really good films or TV shows, but growth in subscriber numbers is what they are really after. Just consider this other article published today where their CEO casually lists in a nutshell (and its not really private information anyway, you can read their financials on their investor website) that Netflix rakes in US$1.4 billion each month from its 139 million global subscribers, but are in basically US$24 billion debt by the end of 2019 from creating original content. Right now, they are burning cash to achieve growth. And they need to, because of the impending Apple SVOD launch. But back to the Netflix TV shows conundrum - what do you do with a TV show you realised is not making more and more people subscribe to Netflix? You maintain exclusivity over it, or at least impose so many restrictions on the show's creators that when they are finally allowed to make more seasons of it somewhere else, there is at least a 3 year gap time where much of the show's momentum from its launch on Netflix is lost. I think my content-producing friends who are dying to sell a TV pitch to Netflix should sit up straighter at this point. Basically if you are able to sell a TV pitch to them, and they give you an offer to fund your entire production, baked into the terms of this all-expenses-paid deal+back end for you the show creator is a teensy  moratorium T&C clause that says you will never ever have control over your own show. You give up all future international rights and unless you are a huge studio or a major TV producer, you won't even be able to make the same show again somewhere else until many many years later. Its the same with movies that are acquired by Netflix - you give up rights to how your film is released unless it is already negotiated inside the contract, in exchange for that sell-your-soul money. Love - not renewed after 3 seasons. Present episodes will probably never be seen outside of Netflix, and neither will future ones if any. The ironic thing is, Netflix themselves are happy to take in external TV series like Lucifer and Designated Survivor that are retired elsewhere and lest you think its because they want to support content creators who have worked so hard to build up that property outside on network television - its really an easy way to tap into the goodwill of viewers who love that TV show already, and yep, gain new subscribers to the Netflix platform. But the problem is, if that show doesn't add more and more subscribers with every new season produced in-house at Netflix, it will be retired as well. And this time, the creators can't go out somewhere else and make new content for that show elsewhere. The buck stops at Netflix. But for all this hue and cry about Netflix and how the industry is starting to notice the consequences of selling to or working for Netflix, much can be said about our own viewing habits in this age of streaming. We clearly don't need to follow a TV series longer than 3 seasons even though we love it dearly, so long as a new series or the next Fyre documentary or Marie Kondo talking point will be seen on Netflix - we won't be giving up that subscription any time soon. Hence I predict that the good old days of binging on 6-10 seasons of The Office or Friends or Brooklyn Nine-Nine will be over, replaced by an ever renewing slate of new and original programming that will hold our attention for that brief month when everyone is talking about it, before moving on to the next Big Show. But if they make more seasons of Kim's Convenience - which is not a Netflix Original - I'm down. For what we do at Anticipate, we don't claim to be different from this 'churn' effect. We of course acquire and release new titles all the time, and that keeps our content fresh and exciting. But there is an understanding that we never fully own the content we release - yes we license it for a period of time, and the business runs on exclusivity over periods of time - but we don't deny it a life after its initial theatrical release is done. We are happy to license our older titles to other exhibitors, VOD platforms, festivals and other special interest groups and events to be seen again and again. And this I believe is the healthiest and most robust way to ensure the property that we temporarily own will reach its fullest audience. Maybe you say that Anticipate is obviously singing this tune because we are too small to play that have-a-platform-own-the-content-on-it game and it's true, but even if we did own a platform in the future (highly unlikely anyway, given how much it'll cost) I don't believe in locking up content in perpetuity to build loyalty in something else. For Anticipate, reaching audiences for the films we have is the end goal, not the waypoint towards another goal. Yah, 3D must be seen to be believed. Also we are in love with this poster and there's never enough times to repost this. Anyway, I promised a pitch to justify the existence of and dilute all the salt poured out in this blog post. Here it is: we have a 3D arthouse film called LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT playing at a single GV cinema at Suntec City these coming 2 weekends - you can see all showtimes here. While this title is available for any other exhibitor who owns a 3D theatre to show (an expensive requirement), it is also an example of a fantastic piece of cinema which achieves its fullest potential in the theatrical experience – its 3D segment is masterfully designed and beautifully executed, suspending you within a vivid, augmented dreamscape. Some films, like this one, are simply best viewed in cinemas. Just ask the sound designers for Roma.

Dear followers of Anticipate Pictures, I am hard at work putting together my schedule for Berlinale, which is the international film festival (and market) that occurs every February. Perusing Sundance reviews and seeing what is on offer at Berlin - the weeks leading up to every film market are breathless. You are deluged with breaking information about what title is buzzing from the trades, and one has to make snap decisions on which films one absolutely has to review for consideration. At the same time I coordinate all aspects of our current releases in cinemas. And in the last 3-4 months, Anticipate has been releasing new titles every 2 weeks or so. Consider since November 2018: THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT, CLIMAX, then 6 films premiering at SGIFF, then the theatrical releases of GIRL, SUSPIRIA, and now CAPERNAUM. In 2 weeks time, COLD WAR will open, and then we will release at least 5 more titles after that in Q2 2019. Its a pace that probably could have been handled better with a small team of at least 3-5 people, instead of just 1. Alas, that is the case. Our GV partnership, supported by the fine folks at Singapore Film Society, has thankfully given me a breather from the logistics of running our own screenings. I remember this time last year, when we were releasing GOOD TIME, THE SQUARE and THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER, I spent every single evening at The Arts House from January to end-March 2018, where it was me and a hapless marketing manager / volunteer who was greeting you at the door, and then introducing the screenings. It was a great feeling of course to introduce our films before presenting them to the audience, but I cannot deny that this form of releasing films on the big screen took a toll on at least my personal life. It was a stressful period for friendships, relationships, family commitments... ah but I digress. This time last year at The Arts House - Jan 2018. Over the course of 2018, we have gone from running our own shows to having exhibitor partners on board to help release our films. And that is really the role of the distributor - not to run our own screenings, but to bring films into the local market for exhibitors to showcase. As you can tell, it has taken us this long to find partners. Our job gets slightly easier, but only slightly, because now there are a whole host of other KPIs - attendance rates on average per session etc. to meet. And although things might be looking slightly up, the race has not been won for discerning cinemagoers like you in our country. Every session of an Anticipate film is on a tentative basis, and if they don't do well for even one session, it gets yanked. In contrast, if a larger more commercial film doesn't do well for 1 or 2 sessions, there's always 20 more sessions of the same film in 30 other locations. Economies of scale doesn't apply to us. It's there and suddenly it might not. A poster for CAPERNAUM in cinemas this past weekend. (Jan 2019) But look at all the films we are competing with! (Jan 2019) Being at the bottom of the totem pole as an independent distributor also means every exhibitor cherry picks from more commercial films offered by other larger players. But although the journey feels thankless, it is when you choose to see our film in the cinema, and you felt something, that it all feels worth it. Missing Chinese New Year every year for me is worth it. Could I ask for a small favour? If you'd take a few moments to recommend our work on our Facebook Page under the tab "Reviews", and our films on the GV website (if you're a GV Movie Club fan) - it could mean the difference between someone discovering our movies, and not. Word of mouth is how companies like mine survive, and especially since we've been doing it for a while - I realise that has been the only way we have survived this long. I don't know what the future holds, but thanks for being with us so far. Keep demanding our films from your favourite cinema. I promise we will only grow if you keep seeing our films :) See you at the movies! -Vincent Quek, Founder of Anticipate Pictures