TIFFCOM Pitching Contest winners 2023

Source: TIFFCOM

Centre left: Masaru Osaki / Centre right: Naoto Tsukiashi

Naoto Tsukiashi’s Necro Eater Yataro received the MPA Grand Prize at the MPA/DHU/TIFFCOM Pitching Contest on Thursday (October 27).

The event, which took place as part of the TIFFCOM market that runs alongside Tokyo International Film Festival, also awarded a special recognition prize to Masaru Osaki’s Visage Vault.

The MPA Grand Prize winner is awarded a five-day study trip to the Film Immersion Course in Los Angeles, supplied by the Motion Picture Association (MPA).

The special recognition prize winner is invited to the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, which will be held at Home of the Arts (HOTA) on Australia’s Gold Coast on November 3.

Now in its sixth year, the event was co-hosted by the MPA, Digital Hollywood University (DHU) and TIFFCOM and comprised two sessions. The first was a masterclass seminar led by Niv Fichman, producer of The Red Violin, Blindness and Park Chan-wook’s upcoming HBO miniseries The Sympathizer. The second part was the pitching content, in which five finalists competed, with the two winners selected by jurors.