At the Taiwan Creative Content Fest in Taipei, Paris-based Eddy Cinéma is putting its weight behind ‘Wilderness of the Greenriver,’ the first animated feature from Barcelona-based Hong Kong director Ellis Kayin Chan. The team is in Taipei to attach Asian co-production partners, animation studios, distributors and sales companies, with a theatrical release planned for 2030.
The story and the grief behind it
Set in a world where technology lets people delete painful memories, the film follows Arin, a man with no memory of his past, who discovers that a patient named Zia is the sister he lost. The revelation forces him to decide between upholding the memory-erasure system and reclaiming his own humanity.
Chan says the story comes from his own loss. After his sister took her own life, he says he understood that erasing pain also erases tenderness and love. ‘Pain is not the enemy of being human – forgetting is,’ Chan says. The film, he adds, does not romanticize suffering; it raises a harder question about what gets lost when people suppress pain to survive.
Why the market signals matter
This is not an untested package. A three-minute proof of concept, developed with Hong Kong Arts Development Council support, won the top award at Taipei’s Golden Horse Film Project Promotion in 2025. At Annecy this year, the feature pitch collected awards from Ciclic, SACD and Titra. Chan was animation supervisor on Netflix’s first Korean animated feature, ‘Lost in Starlight,’ and has done work for Burberry and Balenciaga.
Eddy Cinéma’s track record adds another layer of validation. The company co-produced Louis Clichy’s ‘Iron Boy,’ which won a Special Jury Prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section and the jury and audience awards at Annecy this year. Nicolas de Rosanbo serves as executive producer.
What partners are being asked to decide
For distributors and platforms, festival pitch awards are increasingly useful as early third-party vetting for projects that do not yet have a finished cut to screen. The producers see ‘Wilderness of the Greenriver’ as a hopeful story about family and the ethics of technology, with appeal to both family audiences and arthouse viewers.
- The script with writer Clément Roussier is targeted for early 2027.
- Storyboard, casting and editing are slated to wrap by early 2028.
- Animation runs from 2028 into 2029, ahead of a 2030 theatrical release.
The TCCF ask
Producers say they believe the film ‘will have a strong market potential in Europe and Asia.’ In Taipei, the team is looking for co-production partners in Asia, animation studios, and distributors and sales companies. The strategic choice for buyers is whether to enter at the co-production stage, with influence over territory and creative decisions, or wait for a completed film with clearer audience data but less favorable terms.
The Taiwan Creative Content Fest, organized by the Taiwan Creative Content Agency, runs Nov. 6–9 at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center.
Source: Variety
