Richard Propper

TV Real Weekly, October 1, 2008

President

Solid Entertainment

Solid Entertainment has been offering quality nonfiction programming to buyers around the world since it was established in 1994. It has built its reputation on choosing films and series that are distinguished for their powerful imagery, sophisticated editorial content, clear storytelling and their ability to engage and enlighten the audience. It’s a formula that works.

This commitment to high-end product paid off in a big way. Solid is a reliable supplier to major broadcasters around the world, from RAI and the BBC to Discovery and National Geographic Channels.

At MIPCOM, Richard Propper, Solid’s president, will be offering buyers a variety of one-off documentaries and factual series. And he is giving clients the choice of selecting documentaries in the format best suited to their time slots. He has recently picked up quite a slate of feature-film documentaries, for which there are also one-hour versions.

“The first one is Revolution Green, narrated by Woody Harrelson,” he explains. “It follows one of the first scientists in the biodiesel industry, who has a refinery located in Hawaii. He has figured out how to take waste cooking-oil and turn it into biodiesel. Most countries were pretty turned on by this, because everybody is interested in alternative fuels. Germany, on the other hand, outlawed biodiesel because it gets into the larger discussion of fuel or food and that is becoming the next political discussion. This documentary deals exactly with that: Is biodiesel sustainable as an alternative fuel?”

This is the type of program that offers good takeaway information, explains Propper, “where viewers are not just left with depressing information. They feel they can do something.”

Another documentary that Solid will be highlighting at MIPCOM is Hijos de la Guerra (Children of the War). “It’s about the gang known as MS-13. There is a fascination around the world right now for North and South American gangs,” he explains. “We have a British filmmaker who went down into Central and South America to find out the real roots of MS-13, who these guys are, what they are doing, and what the U.S. government is doing to try to stop them.”

On the lighter side, the series Uncorked! Wine Made Simple travels to France and California into the heart of the vineyard and the mind of the winemaker to examine how wine is made and why we love it.