Anca Truta

World Screen Weekly, May 29, 2008

CEO, Entertainment Division

MediaPro

The fact that broadcasters in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have matured and are now less reliant on imported programs, being eager and able to produce their own shows, plays well to the strengths of MediaPro.

As the leading media group in Romania and one of the most successful in CEE, MediaPro’s businesses are wide ranging. From TV and radio stations, including the market leaders Pro TV and Acasa TV, to an entertainment division that houses a TV and film studio, production facilities, a home-video label, a movie-theater multiplex, new media and telecommunications, print and, finally, a successful distribution company.

A 12-year veteran of the business, Anca Truta has witnessed firsthand the growth in media markets across CEE and their subsequent trends in programming. Most recently she has noticed the “huge interest that most commercial and niche TV stations show towards local products, such as sitcoms, TV series, movies and telenovelas. Of course, this can only be a huge advantage for MediaPro Dis�tribution. We are able to follow this trend and sell more of our original formats, which proved to be very successful and attractive for buyers from Russia and Central and Eastern European countries. It’s up to us now to embrace this opportunity and transform these collaborations into long-term partnerships. Of course, [we can do that by] relying on our products, which are better and better every season.”

Truta is quite proud of the varied slate of programming she will be presenting at DISCOP. “It is one of the most exciting and rich catalogues ever to be displayed by our company at a Central and Eastern European market,” she says. The slate includes tele�novelas like Gypsy Heart and Tears of Love as well as TV series like Mothers and Doctors, Good Guys and California.

“One of the products we are very confident in is Gypsy Heart. While airing in Romania, on Acasa TV, the spectacular telenovela produced by MediaPro Pictures was a real ratings phenomenon,” says Truta. “It actually succeeded in breaking every audience record, proving to be one of the most successful prime-time series.”

While telenovelas are a top seller for MediaPro, so are feature films. “Another new project we are very proud to present at DISCOP is one of the most high-profile productions to come out of the MediaPro Studios, Fire and Ice: The Dragon Chronicles,” says Truta. “It is an extremely ambitious MediaPro Pictures production, and also the first Romanian movie ever produced in English.”

MediaPro will also offer buyers one of its strongest titles, California Dreamin’ (Endless), a winner of the Un Certain Regard prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. The film has sold around the world and tells the story of a U.S. Marine captain (Armand Assante) who is assigned to escort a train carrying NATO equipment to Yugoslavia during the war in Kosovo.

Truta enjoys very much the variety her job offers. When she started working in entertainment she didn’t realize that “the TV industry can offer so many opportunities: to learn new things every day, but most of all, to face new challenges every day.

“My main goals for MediaPro Distribution are to build a name for MediaPro Pictures’ productions world�wide; to acquire and distribute some of the most ambitious projects from independent producers for the territories of CEE and CIS; to penetrate new markets beyond the borders of CEE and, last but not least, to maintain our position as a leader in the Romanian market in terms of distribution of independent content in theaters, home video and television.”

—By Anna Carugati