With the Busan International Film Festival set to run from October 2-11, and its business platform the Asian Content Film Market (ACFM) set for October 5-8 in Busan, ABS-CBN, the Philippines’ leading media and entertainment company involved in the creation, production, and distribution of television programming both domestically and internationally, has announced that the company will be participating at ACFM for the first time and will be under the banner of the Philippine Pavilion. Ruel S. Bayani, Head, the International Productions Division, ABS-CBN, and Sylvia Sanchez, co-producer for The Bagman from Nathan Studios, will be attending.

In addition to its attendance, the company will also be unveiling its newest drama series The Insider (10 x 60’), a gripping action-packed series that transforms modern journalism into a heart-racing narrative, blurring the lines between reporting the story and becoming the story. The Insider is a high-energy dive into truth, trust, and the extraordinary lengths journalists go to uncover and tell stories that shape our world.

“We are very pleased to be attending ACFM. As a networking and business platform for industry professionals worldwide, ACFM is the perfect venue for us to meet with co-producers, investors, and buyers. This is why we choose to unveil The Insider here, our newest drama series that could not be more timely given today’s new coverage,” commented Bayani. “As a pioneer and leader in globalizing Filipino content, we have no doubt this new title, as well as The Bagman, will help to promote Filipino titles to the forefront of today’s global marketplace and buyers around the world.”

Along with its full slate of global titles and The Insider, ABS-CBN will be offering the company’s tentpole international co-production The Bagman (8 x one-hour), a spin-off of the original locally produced digital series Bagman for the Filipino audience.   

The Bagman stars Arjo Atayde, reprising his character Benjo Malaya from the original Bagman series, a role that won him the 2020 Asian Academy Creative Awards Best Actor. Atayde recently won the Best Male Lead in a TV Programme from Content Asia for Cattleya Killer, another ABS-CBN title.

The original digital series, Bagman 1 and 2, which sold to Netflix Philippines, follows the story of Benjo Malaya, a neighborhood barber who landed a job as the governor’s henchman and gets caught up in a dangerous web of crime, corruption, and political turmoil. Now with The Bagman, when convicted prisoner and former governor, Benjo Malaya, learns the tragic news about his missing family, he is left with no choice but to return to the vicious underworld that he turned his back on, and take on a new mission, this time, as a Bagman for the sitting president of the Republic of the Philippines to stop an impending civil war.

First look at The Bagman trailer is available here: https://vimeo.com/991696330/f4417a5efb?share=copy