GLOBALGATE Entertainment, the local-language film consortium of American entertainment company Lionsgate, has added the Philippines’ Viva Communications, Inc. to its 13-country entertainment network which signal’s Viva’s strengthening efforts to make its productions available to the international market.

“Viva has a rich and diverse pool of creative talent and a massive catalogue of original content. It is now the right time to show the world what Filipinos are capable of and I believe that Globalgate Entertainment is the right partner to bring this into fruition,” Viva Communications, Inc. Chairman and CEO Vicente R. del Rosario, Jr., said in a company press release.

Viva currently has almost four decades of experience as a multimedia distributor of Hollywood and local-language content in the country. Its affiliated labels include Viva Films, Viva International Pictures, Viva Live, Viva Networks, Viva Records, and Vicor Records.

Among the films produced by Viva in recent years were Kita Kita (2017), Sid & Aya (2018), Aurora (2018), and Never Not Love You (2018).

Established in 2016, Globalgate — headed by its principals Clifford Werber, William Pfeiffer, and Paul Presburger — was created to produce and distribute local language films from around the world resulting in “mainstream, wide release local language films in key international territories,” the company’s website says.

“As Hollywood studios reduce film output and increasingly rely on high-budget, so-called ‘tent-pole’ films to which they retain worldwide distribution rights, content-deprived independent, international distributors are increasingly focused on local-language films produced for mainstream audiences. International audiences are responding with local-language films now commandeering the weekly ‘Top 10’ film charts in key territories,” the website added.

It added that the company which “sources and curates intellectual properties and remakes” currently has a library of over 20,000 titles from its consortium partners

Among Globalgate’s current partners are Televisa (Latin America), Gaumont (France), Nordisk (Scandinavia), Kadokawa (Japan), Lotte (South Korea), Tobis (Germany), and Rai (Italy). The company also has partners in Turkey, Belgium, Colombia, and Brazil while Lionsgate covers the US, UK, and Canada.

“Viva Communications, a closely knit, world-class content production and distribution company, is a perfect fit for Globalgate’s consortium. Together with Vic and the entire Viva family, we’ll focus on production of mainstream Filipino films while augmenting Globalgate’s formidable inventory of commercial intellectual property sourced from our consortium partners around the world,” Globalgate said in the release. — Zsarlene B. Chua

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