Al Jazeera Chief Set for MIPDOC Keynote

PARIS, February 21: MIPDOC, set for April 14 to 15 at the
Intercontinental Carlton Hotel in Cannes, will celebrate its tenth anniversary
with a keynote from Al Jazeera’s director general, Wadah Khanfar, a focus on
Italy, and the return of its International Trailblazers initiative.

Khanfar’s keynote will focus on the Arab broadcaster’s
decision to launch a documentary channel covering current affairs, social
issues, culture, art and religion.

MIPDOC is focusing on the thriving Italian production
industry during its MIPDOC Made in Italy event. As part of the initiative,
Alessandro Signetto, the president of the documentary association Doc IT, will
show trailers of five notable Italian documentary productions.

The conference program will also offer panel sessions on,
among other topics, online documentary distribution. It will also feature
workshops on pitching strategies and producing in China.

Additionally, MIPDOC includes the second edition of the
International Trailblazers initiative, designed to recognize creativity and
innovation in the documentary field. International Trailblazers is sponsored by
the Sundance Channel and Korean Broadcasting Institute and organized with
support from the National Film Board of Canada. The Trailblazers are Marshall
Curry (USA), Larry Weinstein (Canada), Paolo Trombetti (Italy), Uldis Cekulis
(Latvia), Jean-Marie Teno (Cameroon), Vincent Moloi (South Africa), Gan Chao
(China) and Nao Kubota (Japan).

Further, the MIPDOC Co-Production Challenge, also sponsored
by the National Film Board, plans to give directors and producers the chance to
pitch their documentary projects to a jury of industry experts.