Silvana D’Angelo

President & CEO, Flor Latina Entertainment Group

Please list your top 5 highlights for DISCOP:

> *Swindlers (impostores) starring Leonardo Svaraglia and Leticia Bredice based on the successful Oscar nominated film “nine queens”.

> *Easy Money (guita facil) starring Malena Solda, Carlos portaluppi and a great cast, with tango songs and dances by the most important tango companies in argentina and written by Marcelo camano, the writer of Montecristo and “Vidas Robadas”.
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> *Maltratadas (guilty for being women ) starring best actricess from latina america in the main rol to be announced in Discop and written by Esther Feldman (writer of lalola and Mr Pells)

> *marriage bowls *(matrimonios y algo mas) a 40-year humor familiar success show now available as a format to be adapted to all languages with scripts from acclaimed Hugo Moser.

> Dromo (nothing is what it seems) starring alejandro fiore and a great cast, written by Andres Gelos (author of Fox’s Kadabra, among others}

What is it about these properties that you feel will do well at the market?
 
First of all because couriously I started in this business around 15 years ago by handling Eastern Europe!! so I think I am quite involved in the way eastern european people think, love and laugh. I am specially fond of my eastern european clients and they know that. They have always welcomed argentinan series for years and placed them in a privilage place in their grids. So they know very well the way we produce and tell stories and it is completely familiar to them. And these series are perfect to suite their taste, not only in prime time weekly dramas, but in suspense series and hillarious comedies such as Marriage Bowls or Titos Vs Titas. Hillarious indeed and written by the most talented authors to secure a sure success.
Additionally, please have in mind that Flor Latina is today not only a Distribuiton company but much more than that, we create series in cooperation with main producers and writers specially focused on the international market. If you have a look at our series Swindlers (coproduced between TyC and palermo tv) you will see a totally vanguardist “ European look” series, but with the ‘latin’ flavor which makes it so special and unique, the perfect combination for these territories which love the latin essence. Argentine productions have always found a good place in all european tv schedules , but there are some genres which probably are not so requested today as in the past to produce locally, such as telenovelas, since most big channels are beginning to produce or have produced their own shows by remaking other good formats, which is being done at present time by territories such as Russia, romania, poland or croatia and the trend continues throught all Cis countries, balcans and central eastern europe. This is why we do both : licencing high quality shows as a premium “latas” for broadcast in its original version and our speciality= great formats to reproduce locally for those stations searching big hits for their prime time such as “Matrimonio y Algo” mas, a sketch show formula which proved to win the time slot for over 40 years in latin america with easy setting and backed by a very solid and proven scripts by Hugo Moser, one of the most renowned argentine humor writers from the last decades. The same happens with “Tito Vs Tita’s “from Diego Estevanez, and all our comedy formats from Jorge Maestro (proven hits in prime time slots in argentina) now available for remake through all eastern europe. Also, we are sure that, in the same way it happened in Latin America during the past LA Screenings, our new drama show “Guility for being Women (maltratadas)” will be on the favorite fictions In 2010 in this area too : independen stories of ill-treated women, both phisically or psicologically illtreated (harassment, economic violence, marital rape, brutally beaten and even murdered). A new kind of “killing women” but with the opposite view: they are the victicms. But they can also take revenge… A series which is being written by Esther Feldman (author of Lalola and Mr Pells) and which is being pre sold to 10 countries only with the presentation of its general idea and the guarantee of a prestigious writter as Esther is. On the other hand, we will be completing the first episode or our new short series (26 eps each season) romantic comedy called Easy Money, which for the first time in the argentinean tv history, has incorporated the element of the Tango music as an additional character, believe it or not. This was sth we were requsted many times and noone had taken the risk to both produce a series plus creating a tango world with dancers, muscisians , paralel business etc. a Great production viewers will love from the very first moment, starred by Malena Solda and Carlos Portaluppi, two major actors who fell in love with this project and scripts written by Marcelo Camano, writer of Montecristo and Vidas robadas, two very successful telenovelas from argentina which got a great success and prestige around the world. So I am definitively sure for all the above, that we have the best offer in the market for our eastern european market and I am sure we will close many deals in site during Discop. We are very enthusiastic with this market and with so many new productions to show to our customers.

 What are your overall expectations for DISCOP?
 I think the markets is definitively recovering. We decided not to attend Discop last year since we had noticed that many clients had cancelled due to the tough crisis we are all aware of which has beaten the whole industry from end 2008 throught the whole 2009. However, we are happy to notice that clients are spontaneusly sending us suggestions for the meetings and request materials to screen on several of these stories they also find in our website. I think that companies tried to restrain as much as possible during 2009 to acquire new stuff but they cannot continue the rest of their life only by recycling old library if they want to be competitive in their markets, so they are betting again and they will try to find easy to produce formats, from renowned writers and not so expensive to recreate. This is exactly what we offer to our customers in Eastern Europe, taylor made programming with all these characteristics on all genres giving them options from 12 producing companies and writers responsible for the most acclaimed argentinean hits around the world. We have much expectations for Discop andI am sure they will be 100% fulfilled.