Head of Acquisitions
DM Don Square Entertainment
Mariani is a business entrepreneur, who started her business by supplying manpower and running a retail shop. In 1992, she established DM Don Square Enterprise, and was the only distributor of Filipino movies in Brunei Darussalam. The company entered into a partnership with AV Audio and Video and Goodman Enterprise to produce movies in CDs and DVD format. She was able to steer the company to be a major player in marketing and distribution of VCDs to local shop owners nationwide and soon expanded the business to distribution of foreign television programs in the country.
Mariani continued to diversify the business reach by selling Philippine content to the local TV station, Radio Television Brunei. This was followed with additional content distribution, such as international cooking shows, Mandarin content, Hindustan programmes, Korean, Japanese, and English contents with different genres. The company’s first international film market attendance was the Bangkok International Film Festival in 2007 and was soon followed by participation at the Hong Kong Filmart, also on the same year.
Their first participation at the Asia TV Forum was in 2011 and have been in attendance every year since.
Attending film markets, workshops and talks with luncheon and dinner invitations, meetings, and networking events during the film markets gave Mariani the opportunity to meet the players and shakers in the film industry. The exposure led the company to be invited to participate in other regional content markets like the Tokyo International Film Festival and film markets held in Seoul and Busan in South Korea.
The company received a collaboration invite from Japan Foundation, the organizers of the Tokyo International Film Festival, and they were able to successfully hold the 1st Japanese Film Festival in Brunei Darussalam in February 2018. This event set another milestone for DM Don Square Entertainment.
Last year, in 2019, Mariani spearheaded the submission of a Brunei content at the Busan Film Festival. The short film was nominated for the 1st Asian Content Award at the festival. Together, they graced their first red carpet walk, alongside other Asian content nominees, celebrities, directors, producers and writers.
Mariani’s love for films led her to where she is now and brought her company to where it is now. With time, the more it is clear to Mariani now that she wants to stay in the business for a long time. In fact, she envisions herself as a producer by 2021, and putting up a Performing Arts Studio to hone local Bruneian talents in the future.