At Asia’s leading audiovisual market, the innovative metaphysical science-fiction feature attracts interest from top-tier partners. The director scouts Japanese temples, including Ryusen-ji: Japan is in the running to become a new filming location.
TOKYO – A debut that reshapes the project’s prospects. With its participation in TIFFCOM, Asia’s leading international audiovisual content market, held as part of the Tokyo International Film Festival, Delta Star Pictures marks a decisive milestone in the journey of AETERNUM, the new metaphysical science-fiction feature film directed by Jordan River. The film tells the story of a young woman called upon to awaken the one force that no artificial intelligence can replicate, human consciousness, in order to stop an ancestral threat looming over humanity. The project was presented at the prestigious Tokyo Gap-Financing Market (TGFM) as one of the 24 projects in development selected for the 2026 edition.
The Tokyo showcase has already delivered concrete results: several leading companies have expressed strong interest in joining the project as strategic partners, to support its various stages of production, distribution and promotion.
AETERNUM’s production expansion rests on an exceptional institutional framework: the bilateral film co-production agreements promoted by the Italian Government, and in particular the historic Italy–Japan co-production treaty, a milestone that stands as the first co-production agreement ever signed by Japan with a Western country. The strategic value of the agreement was reaffirmed at a recent institutional meeting at the Italian Embassy in Tokyo, attended by the Ambassador of Italy to Japan Mario Vattani and by Roberto Stabile, Head of Internationalization at Cinecittà and representative of the Italian Ministry of Culture. For AETERNUM, new relationships and similar bilateral agreements strengthen the synergies already under way with Brazil, a country linked to Italy by well-established audiovisual cooperation.
Beyond the financial synergies, the Tokyo mission laid the groundwork for expanding the shooting plan. Director and producer Jordan River, accompanied by a production delegation, carried out in-depth location scouting at some of Japan’s most evocative sites, including the renowned Ryusen-ji temple, confirming the possibility of setting several sequences in Japan. These will be added to the Italian locations already identified across Abruzzo, Trentino, Puglia, Calabria and Lazio, weaving together Western culture and Eastern ascetic aesthetics in a film of powerful visual and symbolic atmospheres.
Meanwhile, AETERNUM’s outlook extends to the Americas: with Brazil, cooperation opportunities are on the table, focused in particular on post-production and visual effects; with the United States, significant talks are under way on the distribution and positioning of the film in the North American market.
The names of the partner companies and international players involved will be officially announced in the coming months, once the operational agreements have been finalized.