MIPTV’s In Development Opens Call for Entries for Drama & Kids’ Content

MIPTV’s In Development initiative has launched the call for entries for the 2020 market for drama and kids’ content.

The deadline for submissions is January 13, with chosen projects being announced in late February. Projects will be selected by three international juries of industry experts and will subsequently be pitched to potential partners live at MIPTV in Cannes.

The Drama Series Pitch sees established producers present a range of high-end, original fiction projects seeking financing and/or co-production partners, while the Kids Series Pitch presents the promising projects from creators and producers of animation and live-action series (for all target ages) to meet kids’ growing appetite for innovative content. The Creative Talent Pitch involves independent creators/producers presenting an original scripted and serialized creative concept drawn from a diverse range of media to be developed and/or adapted as scripted series.

In Development, launched in 2018, facilitates dealmaking and encourages new business partnerships through a suite of tools. Among them are advanced online recommendations of people, projects and programs through an AI-based algorithm in MIPTV’s online database of international producers, buyers, commissioners, distributors and investors. There’s also a curated list of “producers to watch” from all genres and from all over the world. Industry event partners on the initiative to date include CANNESERIES, Seriencamp, WebFest Berlin, Marseille Web Fest and Bilbao Web Fest.

Jury members to date include: Gregg Bywalski, Webedia Rights general manager; Manman Chen, founding partner and COO of WeKids; Guillermo Farre, head of general entertainment channels in Spain, France and Africa for WarnerMedia; Sydney Gallonde, CEO and executive producer at Make It Happen Studio; Jane Gogan, director at Yellow Path Productions; Aline Marrache, senior VP development for original scripted content at Universal Music France; Alex Medeiros, director of content development and acquisitions at Globo Channels; Stephen Mowbray, head of SVT International for SVT; Kazufumi Nagasawa, managing director and CCO at Hulu Japan; Tone Ronning, executive producer for drama and international co-productions at NRK; Vanessa Shapiro, president of worldwide TV distribution and co-production at Gaumont; Vicky Schroderus, acquisition executive at YLE International Acquisitions; and Michele Zatta, commissioning editor for Rai Fiction.

Lucy Smith, deputy director of Reed MIDEM’s television division, which organizes MIPTV, said: “In Development continues to grow as a business accelerator that combines the discovery of great new projects, the access to international financing and the creation of strategic partnerships. The TV and wider entertainment industry are evolving. This means that for many companies and broadcasters, accessing premium content increasingly requires entering the production cycle at the earliest possible stage. MIPTV and In Development are committed to providing the industry with the means to achieve this goal.”