A Banquet for the World —
The Deal Behind the Story: From ATF to Global IP

One ATF meeting. Two years of trust-building. One ambitious global play for Asian animation. A Banquet for Hungry Ghosts shows how a market-floor introduction can evolve into a multi-territory co-production, worldwide sales partnership and a new model for taking Asian IP to the world.

For Singapore-based Robot Playground Media, the Annecy Cristal win for The Violinist has opened new doors. But for co-founder Ervin Han, the real value of recognition lies in what comes next.

“The Cristal changes the conversation, for sure, but it doesn't change the business overnight.”

For an independent animation studio, the award provides validation when approaching financiers, distributors and talent. More importantly, Han sees it as leverage to build original IP, retain meaningful ownership and enter partnerships from a position of creative strength.

“The value of the Cristal will ultimately be measured by whether it allows us to make better projects, with better partners and on better terms.”

Ervin Han
Co-Founder
Robot Playground Media

That ambition is now being put into practice with A Banquet for Hungry Ghosts, an animated horror anthology rooted in Asian folklore and adapted from the acclaimed book by Chinese-American author and chef Ying Chang Compestine. The 90-minute feature comprises four standalone but interconnected stories, brought together through a hybrid 2D/3D animation pipeline spanning Singapore, Indonesia, Taiwan, India and Ireland.

The project brings together Robot Playground Media and Toonz Media Group as co-producers, alongside Xanthus Animation in Taiwan and Toonz’s Ireland studio Telegael. Toonz will also serve as worldwide sales agent.

For Han, successful co-production is about more than assembling financing. “International co-production works when you're combining complementary strengths, not simply dividing up a budget.”

Different territories bring different creative capabilities, financing structures, production expertise and market relationships. But distributed production also introduces complexity.

“There needs to be one clear creative vision, very clearly defined responsibilities, a common pipeline and, importantly, trust between the producers.”
 

Local stories, global language

Banquet has a simple international proposition: Chinese food, ghost stories and adult animation.

“Food is universal, horror travels extremely well, and anthology gives audiences multiple worlds and visual experiences within one film.”

The cultural specificity is not a limitation. The stories explore greed, family, guilt, betrayal and intergenerational consequences — themes that can travel even when expressed through distinctive Asian folklore.

“You don't necessarily make something global by making it less local. Often it's the opposite.”

That principle is central to Toonz Media Group's strategy. As co-producer and worldwide sales agent, Gulshan David, VP – Feature Film (International Sales), sees cultural specificity as part of the project's commercial appeal.

“Specificity is an asset, not an obstacle, provided the storytelling craft and genre fundamentals are universal.”

For Toonz, adult animation and animated horror also offer an opportunity in an international market still dominated by kids-and-family content.

“We're positioning it deliberately as adult animation, a category that remains relatively under-served globally, particularly when it comes to distinctive, creator-driven IP.”

The company is targeting platforms and distributors across North America, Europe and Asia, alongside theatrical opportunities and genre and animation festivals.

Gulshan David
VP – Feature Film (International Sales)
Toonz Media Group

From sales agent to strategic partner

Perhaps most significantly, Toonz is involved before the film is complete — reflecting a broader evolution in the international sales model.

“Increasingly, the greater value lies in engaging much earlier: helping shape the financing structure, packaging, festival strategy, market positioning and the way the IP is presented to buyers.”

This is where the Banquet partnership becomes particularly instructive. The relationship did not begin with a finished film looking for a sales agent. It began two years earlier, when Toonz first connected with Robot Playground at ATF 2024 during a panel showcasing the Singapore studio’s upcoming slate. What started as an introduction ultimately developed into the co-production and worldwide sales partnership announced at ATF.

For Han, the introduction was only the beginning. “ATF made the introduction, but that's probably five percent of the journey.”

The rest was about building trust, aligning commercial interests and determining who would bring financing, production, rights and sales expertise.

“The real value comes when that introduction develops into enough trust and alignment for everyone to put money, resources and reputation behind the same project.”

That long runway is significant. In an industry where market meetings can generate hundreds of introductions, the value of a market may ultimately be measured not by the number of connections made, but by how many develop into genuine business relationships.

As Gulshan David puts it, the partnership is a fitting example of what can happen when a market-floor conversation develops into something more substantial: “We’re proud that this partnership was born right here at ATF.”
 

Building beyond the film

That philosophy extends to the IP itself.

Banquet is designed as an expandable world, with its restaurant, Host, dishes, cities and future Banquets providing scope beyond a single film. The ambition is not simply to produce and sell one animated feature, but to establish a property with room to develop across markets and formats.

There is also a longer development story behind the project. Mediacorp, Singapore’s national broadcaster, provided early creative-development support when Banquet was initially conceived as a television-series pilot.

For Robot Playground, the project arrives at an important moment. Its debut feature The Violinist won the Cristal for a Feature Film at the 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival, placing the Singapore studio among the small group of Asian studios to have received the festival’s top prize. Banquet now becomes its sophomore feature and first major international co-production since that win.

For both companies, the ambition is therefore larger than one animated feature: to prove that Asian stories can retain their cultural identity while being built, packaged and positioned as globally scalable IP.

And perhaps that is the bigger story behind the deal.

It started with a conversation at ATF. But the real transaction took two years of trust, alignment and shared conviction to build.

The meeting opened the door. The partnership made the deal. And the IP is now ready for the world.