Public broadcaster TDM has launched its first TV Drama Screenplay and Production Contest, and three of 14 local submissions have been shortlisted and have entered the next stage of selection, Hong Kong film director Teddy Chan Tak-sum, who chairs the competition’s jury, announced in a press conference yesterday at the TDM Forum II Studio.
The contest, themed “Unlimited Power and Brilliant Talents”, is a part of a series of prelude activities celebrating the station’s 40th anniversary, aiming to promote drama screenplays based on Macau and using Cantonese as the main language, and the “best screenplay” production crew will receive 790,000 patacas in prize money and production costs.
Lorman Lo Song Man, chairwoman of the executive committee of public broadcaster TDM, said during yesterday’s press conference that the competition had received a great response and a total of 14 original drama scripts based on Macau were collected. Lo also described the quality of the works as “very high” and the competition as “very fierce”.
Lo thanked Chan for joining hands with TDM to cultivate local film and television talents, adding that she looked forward to the birth of “excellent screenplays”, which will be produced into a three-episode TV series, with each episode of the TV series having a duration of 25 minutes.
Chan said that as TDM is allowed to broadcast across the Pearl River Delta, the local TV series will also be telecast in the Greater Bay Area (GBA), “more people can enjoy the film and television works of Macau and understand the unique and fascinating side of Macau.”
Chan, 65, also a film producer, writer and actor, is known for his movies such as “Downtown Torpedoes” (1998), “The Accidental Spy” (2001), and “Bodyguards and Assassins” (2009). In 2010 he won the Best Director Award for “Bodyguards and Assassins” at the Hong Kong Film Awards.
