Editor

Peter Luo - Starlight Media and Weike Le - BFA

Beijing Film Academy (BFA), recognized as the premier film academy in Asia, through its educational institute BFA Century Group, has established an official partnership with Peter Luo’s Stars Collective Program and Starlight, that establishes academic and educational projects in the global film industry; cultivates global talents; explores and promotes cutting-edge film production technology; and incubates global films with diversity and originality.

The cooperation between Beijing Film Academy alum Peter Luo and President of BFA Century Group Weike Li focusus on creative endeavors associated with the incubation, development, packaging, financing, production and distribution of wide ranging content for a global audience, as well as specialized training in new and emerging areas of the entertainment ecosystem.

The partnership promotes content and leverages the “home grown” talent that has emerged from BFA over the years. Utilizing their combined professional and production resources, the partnership will mine and cultivate the emerging talent that have graduated from BFA. There is a clear alignment with the trailblazing Stars Collective program that was established to support emerging filmmakers. Stars Collective currently supports over 100 emerging filmmakers and actors around the world. Over half of those selected of this program are female, and represent a highly diverse mix of nationalities, ethnicity, races, personalities and professional backgrounds.

In the first step of cooperation, BFA Century group will utilize its brand, experience, and team of respected professionals to co-develop a Master Class with Starlight. This signature Master Class will invite industry luminaries who are involved with Stars Collective, such as directors Sam Raimi, James Wan, Alan Taylor; producers Paula Wagner, Donna Gigliotti, Gianni Nunnari, Chris Lee, Sanping Han, Patrick Wachsberger, Eric Heumann, Liming Ke, Rob Minkoff, and Anthony Maccarten (all of which are Stars Collective mentors); and actor Xiaoming Huang (a Stars Collective partner and mentor).

This partnership is dedicated to bringing exclusive experience and insights from these film masters to more than one million graduates and young workers in the global film industry. The BFA Century Group and Stars Collective Master Class will be provided through streaming services and utilize advanced AR/VR digital technologies for a high-end, world class production.

A unique focus of the BFA Century Group & Stars Collective partnership will be strategically incubating the careers of cyber influencers, which will include specialized training for content creation and dissemination and audience engagement through social media. Increasing numbers of young talent who are reaching lucrative celebrity status through social media and there is an evolving business to understand, just like film and television. Therefore, BFA Century Group and Stars Collective will focus on education, training, preparation and finding opportunities for talented creators in the multi-billion-dollar industry that has become a staple of the entertainment ecosystem.

In addition to the Master Class and dedicated Cyber Influencer program, BFA Century Group and Stars Collective will jointly establish and deploy funds to develop film projects with BFA graduates as well as currently enrolled students. This endeavor will open doors and help young storytellers efficiently navigate film investments, film festival nominations, global distributions and copyright transactions.

Projects will be pursued primarily based on their appeal to a younger and diverse demographic that is more likely to embrace and access new media distribution channels, and employ a unique hybrid of BFA post-graduates and a select group of established industry professionals.

The current constraints of the traditional economic models of independent film production, combined with enhanced and increasingly accessible technology, allow the partnership to take advantage of the production and social media talents of the new era of young filmmakers and storytellers.

This deal follows Stars Collective’s partnership with Sundance Institute to launch a new grant program supporting diverse filmmakers - Sundance Institute | Stars Collective Granting Fund. Tapping into an initial fund provided by Starlight, the program provides unrestricted grants to diverse filmmakers and focuses on critical development support as well as urgent needs in advancing projects forward through pre-production, production, post-production, and self-distribution.

Said Peter Luo, “I am very proud to be able to work in an official capacity with BFA Century Group. BFA played such a major role in my own life and career. Starlight’s mission remains to create impact within the entertainment industry and support young, diverse artists at all stages of development. Beijing Film Academy is a renowned institution that has molded amazing talents over the years, with a forward-thinking mentality and unwavering dedication to its students. As we examine our resources and capabilities, as well as the evolving environment of the entertainment industry, we see a tremendous opportunity for expansion and an opportunity to apply our successful Stars Collective model to an industry that has changed greatly in the last few years. We are not making student movies or generic content - this is more of a commercial business enterprise that serves to make content of the highest quality that can compete in the global market.”

Luo added, “The educational component of the business model is crucial as it does not only enhance BFA’s reputation as one of the leading film schools in the world, but also provides for an opportunity for the students and post-graduates to transition into the professional ranks through a proprietary network that allows students to begin building their resume while increasing the profile of BFA graduates in the professional community.

BFA Century Group President Weike Li said, “We’re tremendously excited about our strategic partnership with Peter Luo and his visionary Stars Collective, and take great pride in Peter being a BFA alumni who has built a very successful career in Hollywood while maintaining a sincere passion to provide more opportunities for young filmmakers. BFA Century Group will support and join hands with Starlight to provide a wider stage for a new generation of talented storytellers, and introduce more Chinese contents to global audiences.”

About Stars Collective

Starlight CEO Peter Luo operates out of the company’s offices in Beverly Hills. Luo’s newest program ‘Stars Collective’ helps to promote the next generation of diverse voices and creative storytellers, and really accelerate the female power movement. The trailblazing Stars Collective program supports emerging filmmakers, paving the way for new aesthetics driven by top young creative talent and powerful new voices.

Through Stars Collective, filmmakers and artists are afforded the opportunity to develop content with the guidance of industry luminaries such as directors Sam Raimi and Alan Taylor, actor Xiaoming Huang, and producers Donna Gigliotti, Gianni Nunnari, Chris Lee, Sanping Han, Paula Wagner, Patrick Wachsberger, Eric Heumann, Liming Ke, Rob Minkoff and Anthony Maccarten.

The filmmakers and their mentors work one-on-one with each other, and the collaborations continue through the release of the films.

The program has been greeted with such positive reception that it is now supporting over 100 emerging filmmakers and actors around the world. The majority of those selected of the program are female, and represent a highly diverse mix of nationalities, ethnicities, races and personal and professional backgrounds. The Stars Collective program integrates global resources by bringing together local alliances of film producers and film commissions, throughout Europe for instance, in order to spark the production of more films of distinctive styles and genres.

Stars Collective recently acquired the rights to the Thomas Mendolia directed horror short “Mr. Thisforthat” and is developing and producing a feature adaptation that Mendolia will direct.

Stars Collective recently made headlines with the announcement of a new multifaceted streaming platform SYSM, in collaboration with Jetsen Huashi Wangju and Sky Link TV. SYSM will serve as a hub for content (film, TV series, user-generated content), e-commerce, virtual / digital assets (i.e. NFTs); social media engagement; online theater and events; and digital currency consumption and trading. SYSM is modeled as a subscription based, ad supported, social network and will be available worldwide.

About Stalright

Starlight has a mission to create content that amplifies diverse voices, and a central focus of the program is helping to promote the next generation of aspiring filmmakers and creative storytellers.

On the traditional film side, upcoming movies for Starlight include James Wan’s “Malignant” for New Line, the supernatural horror film "UMMA" for Sony Pictures, which is a collaboration with Sam Rami, and stars Sandra Oh; action/crime/thriller trilogy starring Thai martial arts and action star Tony Jaa; “Golden Empire”, starring Donnie Yen; and Award-winning Thai filmmaker Baz Poonpiriya's horror / mystery / thriller “The Innkeeper.”

Active in its TV business, Starlight recently revealed a television series adaptation of Rebecca F. Kuang’s award-winning fantasy novel trilogy: "The Poppy War", "Dragon Republic" and "The Burning God”, as well as a TV series adapted from the popular action/fantasy/thriller novel “Stone Junction” that will be directed by  Alan Taylor (“Game of Thrones,” “Mad Men,” “Sopranos,” “Boardwalk Empire,” “Deadwod” “Thor: The Dark World”).

Past Starlight films include a wide range of critically and commercially successful films such as “Marshall”, starring Chadwick Boseman; Jon Chu’s “Crazy Rich Asians”; the science/fiction horror film “Greta”, starring Chloe Grace Moretz; “Midway”, starring Woody Harrelson, Patrick Wilson, Dennis Quaid, Mandy Moore, and Luke Evans; and “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” from Guillermo del Toro.

“Midway” and “Crazy Rich Asians” reflect successes of current development deals with Roland Emmerich and Jon M. Chu respectively. They join esteemed filmmakers such as Robert Zemeckis, Sam Raimi, James Wan, Alan Taylor and Sylvester Stallone who are also partnered with Peter Luo and Starlight through ongoing development deals.

About Beijing Film Academy and BFA Century Group

BFA (Beijing Film Academy) is the only film academy in China and the largest film academy in Asia. Through 70 years’ development, it has built up a multidisciplinary and multilevel cultivation system that embraces the entire spectrum of film-making, including production, teaching, creation and research for training advanced film talents. The famous Chinese directors such as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Jia Zhangke and Gu Changwei all graduated from BFA----- the cradle of Chinese film producers.