Singapore-based film companies Potocol and Aurora Media sealed a two-year first-look deal during the closing days of Hong Kong’s Filmart.

Under the agreement, which runs until 2021, Aurora has the option to invest in, co-produce and distribute the films and television series Potocol develops. The partnership also includes an option to bring in Potocol’s founder Jeremy Chua as a co-producer on Aurora’s own development slate.

The companies’ first project together will be the cop thriller Raja from Nepalese writer-director Deepak Rauniyar (White Sun), scheduled to start filming in 2020 with Aurora’s group managing partner Justin Deimen co-producing.

Aurora’s most high-profile recent projects include the U.S. co-produced drama Stano, starring the husband-and-wife team of Joe Manganiello and Sofia Vergara, the Geoffrey Rush-starring Australian pelican drama Storm Boy, and Switzerland/France co-production The Song of Scorpions, starring Golshifteh Farahani and Irrfan Khan.

Chua, for his part, has produced festival favorites including K. Rajagopal’s A Yellow Bird (Cannes), Lav Diaz’s A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery (Berlin) and Ying Liang’s A Family Tour (Locarno).

Potocol was set up by Chua in 2014 to develop and produce Asian auteur and art house films. The titles it is currently producing include Malaysian-born Philippines-based director-producer Bradley Liew’s horror tale Motel Acacia, Singapore-based director Nicole Midori Woodford’s debut feature You Are There and Bangladeshi director Abdullah Mohammad Saad’s drama I See Waves, as well as Singaporean filmmaker Liao Jiekai’s documentary Far Away My Shadow Wandered, which participated in the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum’s Work-in-Progress Lab earlier this week.

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