Event Preview: MIPTV

Laurine Garaude provides a look at what MIPTV delegates can expect during what is set to be “the biggest week in TV.”

Some 10,500 participants from 100 countries are expected to be on site for MIPTV, which this year will see the addition of the inaugural CANNESERIES Festival organized by l’Association Française du Festival International des Séries de Cannes (AFFIS). “The association with CANNESERIES and MIPTV creates a unique and powerful combination of the flagship market, MIPTV, the new gold-star international competition, CANNESERIES, and the new creative forum, In Development, all in the emblematic city of Cannes,” says Laurine Garaude, director of the TV division at Reed MIDEM.

CANNESERIES is a competition for full episodes, presenting ten series from Belgium, Germany, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Norway, South Korea, Spain and the U.S. The selection features Aquí En La Tierra (Mexico), Cacciatore—The Hunter/Il Cacciatore (Italy), Félix (Spain), Killing Eve (U.S.), Miguel (Israel), Mother (South Korea), State of Happiness/Lykkeland (Norway), The Typist/Die Protokollantin (Germany), Undercover (Belgium) and When Heroes Fly (Israel). The CANNESERIES festival will open with the season three premiere of Versailles, Jean-Jacques Annaud’s The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair will open the official competition on Saturday, April 7, and Harlan Coben’s Safe will close the festival.

The MIPDrama Buyers Summit, on Sunday, complements CANNESERIES with presentations of six works in progress: Arctic Circle (Finland/Germany), Bullets (Finland), Cleaning Up (U.K.), Gigantes (Spain), Pagan Peak (Germany/Austria) and Trigger (Russia). “We expect some 450 top buyers,” Garaude says. “The buyers find it very important, given the number of programs being created around the world and the quality of those programs, to have a filter ahead of the show.”

MIPTV officially kicks off Monday, April 9, with over 1,400 exhibiting companies, including 60 new exhibitors and some 3,700 buyers from all over the world.

The main theme of the MIPTV conference program is Creators in Demand. “It certainly is a golden age for creators,” Garaude says. “It’s so important to identify new talent, find new voices, in order to create premium content. It will be particularly visible through In Development, the new event being created with CANNESERIES. It’s our own co-production! The forum will provide the opportunity for screenwriters and producers to pitch and seek finance and broadcast partners for new drama productions on an international level. Some of them are established in their own countries but not well known internationally. Our goal is to make them known around the world and to discover and greenlight the next big international series.”

Taking place over April 10 and 11, In Development will feature a selection of projects to be pitched, including a case study featuring Amazon’s first French production Germanized, networking and more. It will all take place at the Gare Maritime.

Other highlights include a significant focus on VR and the second edition of the Immersive Content Summit. Garaude also touts the increased presence of Asian companies at this year’s events. MIPDOC will see the world premiere of NHK’s Tokyo from Above. MIPFormats has a new showcase from Chinese producers. And Yang Weidong, the president of China’s Youku and Alibaba Media & Entertainment Group, will deliver a keynote and be interviewed on stage by World Screen’s Anna Carugati.

Other keynotes include, Rohana Rozhan, CEO of Malaysia’s Astro; Matthew Henick, head of content strategy and planning for Facebook and previously head of Buzzfeed Studios, who will show how the current landscape is about creativity and sourcing good ideas to make compelling content; filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, who will present the VR series The Limit; and a keynote showcase of the highly anticipated series Safe in the presence of author and showrunner Harlan Coben; actor Michael C. Hall, producer Nicola Shindler, screenwriter Danny Brocklehurt and STUDIOCANAL TV’s managing director, Rola Bauer.

Garaude also stresses the importance of the extensive kids’ TV program at MIPTV, with the International Emmy Kids Awards and a focus on live-action, including the world premiere screening of Find Me in Paris—presented by Cottonwood Media and Federation Kids & Family—and a Live Action Pitch.