UPDATE
Since being showcased through ATF's pitching market, The Violinist has gone on to become one of the year's most celebrated animated features, winning the Cristal for Best Feature Film and the SACEM Award for Best Original Soundtrack at the 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival. The Singapore-led production, executive produced by Justin Deimen alongside an international producing team in Spain and Italy, stands as a milestone for Singapore and Southeast Asian animation, underscoring the role that ATF and sustained international collaboration can play in nurturing globally competitive intellectual property and local stories.

FOREWORD

The Violinist was first introduced at the inaugural Southeast Asian Film Financing Forum (SAFF) within ATF, beginning life as a modest short film concept before steadily evolving into a major international co-production—its early momentum shaped by exposure to financiers, partners, and global decision-makers.

Over time, SAFF matured into the ATF x SAAVA IP Accelerator programme, a platform designed not merely to develop projects, but to cultivate them into globally positioned intellectual property with real commercial traction. Through ATF’s interconnected ecosystem of financiers, distributors, platforms, broadcasters, and creative collaborators, selected projects have been elevated from early-stage ambition into internationally viable content—gaining visibility, co-production pathways, and strategic partnerships.

This journey stands as a clear demonstration of how sustained industry incubation can transform regional stories into enduring, globally resonant IPs.

For nearly a decade, The Violinist existed less as a conventional film project and more as a long-term experiment in whether Singapore-originated animation could compete within the global premium content economy. Now emerging as one of the country’s most ambitious animated productions to date, the Singapore-Spain-Italy co-production is also becoming a case study in how smaller markets can rethink financing, ownership, and international cultural positioning.

According to Justin Deimen, Executive Producer of The Violinist, the project was never designed to function as a traditional domestic commercial film.

Justin Deimen
Executive Producer – THE VIOLINIST
Managing Partner – Goldfinch International
Executive Director – Intercultural Theatre Institute

“One of the biggest misconceptions about projects like The Violinist is that they are financed like conventional domestic films,” says Deimen, who is also Managing Partner at Goldfinch International and Executive Director of the Intercultural Theatre Institute. “From early on, we approached it as a multi-market cultural and IP asset that needed to aggregate different forms of value across territories, incentives, and partnerships over time.”

Financing beyond the traditional film model

That philosophy shaped a financing model built not on a single revenue stream, but on layered international structures. Early support from Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) helped anchor institutional confidence, while private investment, European co-production incentives, sales partnerships, and staggered capital deployment gradually de-risked exposure across multiple stakeholders.

“The project was de-risked not through one financing instrument, but through a layered ecosystem approach,” Deimen explains. “Internationalisation, co-production frameworks, IP longevity, and patient partners who understood that culturally significant animation behaves differently from short-cycle commercial content.”

An international-first commercial strategy

That long-view thinking also extends to return on investment. With Singapore’s domestic theatrical ceiling relatively limited, The Violinist was built around an international-first commercial strategy spanning sales, streaming, television licensing, education, airlines, and long-tail catalogue value.

“The real question is whether Singapore-originated IP can participate meaningfully in the global premium animation economy,” says Deimen. “That is a very different conversation.”

Beyond box office: building industry infrastructure

The film’s positioning as a historical animated epic also reflects a broader strategic ambition beyond box office performance. For Deimen, success includes building international co-production credibility, strengthening Singapore’s animation infrastructure, and proving Southeast Asian stories can command premium global positioning without imitating dominant studio formulas.

“A sustainable film industry is not built purely on grants, nor purely on domestic box office,” he says. “It is built through repeatable international structures, IP ownership, financing sophistication, and long-term talent ecosystems.”

A blueprint for Singapore’s creative economy?

More importantly, Deimen believes The Violinist should not be viewed as a one-off prestige project, but as a potential blueprint for Singapore’s future creative economy.

“The strategic opportunity for Singapore is probably not to compete head-on with the volume output of major studios,” he says, “but to become known for premium, culturally distinctive animation with international reach.”

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Get an exclusive first look into the making of The Violinist with its executive team live on ATF’s In-Development stage on 2 December 2026. Discover more on ATF’s official website.