Tuvalu Entertainment Sets Focus on Creative Partnerships

CANNES: Paul Johnson, CEO and executive producer of Tuvalu Entertainment, tells World Screen Newsflash about how the company is using top-notch creative partnerships to deliver high-quality content.

"Tuvalu Entertainment specializes in premium film, TV and digital productions created in partnerships," Johnson explains. "We believe the global collective partnership of Tuvalu Entertainment (with our international broadcast co-producers and investors) illustrates how a entertainment content company can harness the experience, expertise and dynamism of some of the most exciting and creative entertainment minds today who are all working together towards a common goal.   In these times of austerity, we consistently listen to what our broadcast partners need and are creating premium television with the potential for the best audience ratings at the lowest possible cost. Aside from that, and perhaps more importantly, we give a minimum of 10 percent of our net profits to Tuvalu’s goal of becoming the first country in the world to be 100 percent sustainable in energy, water and food by 2020."

Johnson notes that the company is working on a select group of projects, "so that we keep our broadcast relationships more concentrated, personal and efficient."

The slate includes Innovators The Changed the World, which Johnson describes as "a non-fiction drama series that appeals to a mass market of broadcasters around the world because of its snack-size theatrical style and inspirational charge…. [It] will entice and inspire millions of viewers with very relatable human stories of hard work and achievement."

Sugarland, meanwhile, is a female-targeted drama "about three have-nots who bail on their troubles in the U.K. and are tempted to reinvent themselves amongst the haves in an exclusive ski resort in the Austrian Alps."

At MIPCOM this week, Johnson is keen to expand Tuvalu Entertainment’s base of international partners, "finalize and sign our contracts with existing partners [and] review all editorial feedback from our broadcast, distribution and investment partners before we go into production later this year."