ContentAsia On Air

Roger Cheng, producer of Black Tide Island, joins Janine Stein to discuss the making of the premium Taiwan drama, whichfollows five jailed doctors and intellectuals held at Green Island Prison during the White Terror period (1947–1987). Cheng talks through the storytelling approach to a five-year journey from research to screen, the decision to rebuild Green Island's prison as a full-scale set...

Asia's unscripted formats market has shrunk by about two-thirds over the past five years. So what does it take for an indie agency to survive, let alone win? On this episode of ContentAsia On Air, Jin Woo Hwang, co-founder of Korean formats agency Something Special, joins Janine to talk about life as an indie formats creator, developer and distributor in a market defined by risk aversion and s...

Filipino filmmaker Quark Henares joins ContentAsia On Air to talk about his expanded role shaping the Philippines' film industry, adding reality TV to his credits, his work withRein Entertainment, and giving back through the Lennon Group — plus DJ Fridays and protecting family time. The "Where's the Lie?" director also opens up on saying yes a lot, the Philippines' creative s...

Onat Diaz — director of "Wildflower", "Dirty Linen" and "The Alibi" — joins Content Asia On Air to talk about "The Silent Noise", a 10-episode limited series produced by ABS-CBN Studios for Prime Video about a deaf 10-year-old boy who may hold the key to a murder. The show just won Best Asian Content at the Global OTT Awards in Busan, the Philippines' fi...

Indra Suharjono, co-founder of i.e. Entertainment and one of the most influential names in Thai content distribution, joins Content Asia On Air for a no-BS conversation about where Thailand's industry is headed. We cover why distribution - not co-production - remains Thailand's biggest long-term opportunity, what made "The Medium" and the record-breaking "Love Destiny"...

Content Asia On Air host Janine Stein sits down with WenWen Han, founder and CEO of the Short Drama Alliance, to go inside the fast-moving world of vertical short dramas. Among other things, WenWen talks about the conversations she facilitates between vertical drama creators around the world, the information gaps she's addressing, and the differences (or not) between producers in China and els...

What does it really take to produce a microdrama series? In this episode, we sit down with Absol Bai, a veteran microdrama producer, to talk about the intense reality of creating content in one of the industry's newest, fastest-moving and most demanding fields. From casting actors in days to finishing post-production in under a week, Absol breaks down the process and the product. We dive into:...

In this episode of "Greenlights & Ground Truths", ContentAsia’s Janine Stein speaks with Ding Zhong, director of the animated feature Into the Mortal World . The film, produced by Winsing Animation, reimagines Chinese mythology through a story that moves between the celestial and mortal worlds, exploring questions of fate, identity and family bonds. As the film continues its internat...

In this episode of ContentAsia’s Greenlights & Ground Truths, producer Lina Tan discusses her new film, Khadam , and how Red Communications fuses Malay folklore with its signature women-centred storytelling — using horror to ask a universal question: who are women really slaves to? Set in the 1950s, against the backdrop of Malaysia’s independence and the rising optimism sweeping the country, K...

ContentAsia's Janine Stein talks to Nizam Razak, writer/director of "Papa Zola The Movie" and head of Malaysian production house Monsta about the animated blockbuster, now heading into a 13-country international rollout including Indonesia, Turkey, India and Saudi Arabia. With RM55 million (US$13.5 million) at the Malaysian box office in just 27 days and counting, the film marks a deliberate creat...