Bangkok-based sales agent Diversion has placed North American rights for Tan Siyou’s debut feature Amoeba with distributor Dekanalog. The plan is a US theatrical release in spring 2027, followed by VOD and Blu-ray, with a Canadian theatrical run also in view. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal was negotiated by Mai Meksawan for Diversion and George Schmalz for Dekanalog.
The film tracks a 16-year-old high school dropout in Singapore who returns to an elite all-girls Chinese school and draws three other misfits into her orbit. Their small acts of defiance against strict teachers turn bigger after a family driver’s triad stories inspire them to form a gang, a fantasy complicated by Singapore’s tightly managed public order.
Festival validation before a single ticket
Amoeba debuted in Toronto’s Discovery section in 2025 and has since travelled through Busan, Hamburg, Rome Alice in the City, Marrakech, AFI Fest, Bangkok, Tokyo Filmex and Singapore. Its awards trail gives Dekanalog a ready-made marketing spine:
- Best Youth Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards
- Best Actress, Youth Jury and Cinephilia Critics’ Awards at Pingyao
- FIPRESCI Prize and Taiwan Film Critics Society Award at Taipei Golden Horse
- New Horizons Best Film Award at QCinema
The five-country co-production footprint is part of the package, with Singapore’s Akanga Film Asia, the Netherlands’ Volya Films, France’s Les Films d’Antoine, Spain’s Mararía Films and South Korea’s The Widelog Office attached.
What Dekanalog is signaling
Schmalz positioned the acquisition as an audience-extension play, saying the company has made "strong inroads with Asian-American and young cinephile audiences" through titles such as Constance Tsang’s Blue Sun Palace and Liu Jian’s Art College 1994.
That is a targeted strategy, not a bet on a four-quadrant opening. Festival prizes function as pre-packaged credibility with the exact specialty audience that independent distributors need to reach without blockbuster budgets.
The takeaway for ScreenStat readers
For media planners and entertainment marketers, the sequence matters more than the rights price. A 2027 theatrical date lets the distributor convert festival coverage and reviews into a concentrated niche run, then move to transactional VOD and a collector-focused Blu-ray. The awards in Pingyao, Taipei and QCinema cluster in Asian specialty and cinephile press, which reduces discovery costs for a title without a major US theatrical footprint. The theatrical window becomes a discovery layer, not just a revenue line.
In a market where smaller titles compete for attention across streaming interfaces, award-driven theatrical positioning remains a practical way to make an unfamiliar story legible to buyers, exhibitors and audiences.
Source: Deadline
