Silk Route Entertainment was one of the first-time exhibitors at the 2024 APEX/IFSA Global EXPO in Long Beach, California.
“We started two months ago. Basically, we are brand new,” said Jovita Toh, Chief Executive Officer of Silk Route Entertainment.
“I’ve been in the industry for 25 years. During this time, I’ve been to a lot of film festivals and watched a lot of beautiful movies that never make it beyond their home country, either due to lack of finance, lack of knowledge or lack of contacts and network.”
“We started this company really to give voice to those little movies. It’s really having to search through tons of movies to find that one gem,” explained Jovita, whose mission is to use relationships to get them onto at least a couple of airlines to give them additional leverage for future filmmaking projects.
Pointing to a poster for a Finnish comedy-thriller entitled The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic, Jovita says, “The title alone makes me want to watch. They even do their poster in braille, which is quite clever.”
“It’s about a blind man. The way it’s shot, you see him very clearly, but everything around him and people around him are a blur. So you must go to the movie as though you are him. You don’t see anything in your background, but you know you kind of hear and your senses are just awakened, and it’s just this type of movie that people who dare to go outside of the box to shoot.”
“So I want to bring this to the airlines as well, to give them different types of movies that they can offer to their passengers.”
Most of the films are closed-captioned, making them widely accessible.
“I’ve been in the industry for a long time but I think for a new company, breaking into airlines is not easy. You really need to know people. Thankfully, I have an existing network that I can tap on. Similarly, buying content, people need to trust you and know that you are going to take care of their movies and do right by the IP,” added Jovita.
“For me, it’s tapping on old networks. It’s been relatively easy to get started again based on existing contacts and networks.”
