STUDIOCANAL’s Midnight Sun Among French Export Award Winners

The winners have been selected for the 2018 Export Awards, recognizing distributors and their best-selling French programs in animation, documentary and fiction.

In the fiction category, STUDIOCANAL was recognized for Midnight Sun. “It is a tremendous pleasure to receive the award, which recognizes the international reach of Midnight Sun,” said Françoise Guyonnet, executive managing director of TV series at STUDIOCANAL. “We thank TV France International and we congratulate the Canal + Création Originale strand and the two producers, Atlantique Productions and Nice Drama for giving us an exceptional series. We also congratulate the whole team at STUDIOCANAL for successfully promoting French and European series worldwide. They have done a remarkable work of selling Midnight Sun in over 100 countries.”

In the documentary category, the winner was About Premium Content for Dream the Future. Emmanuelle Guilbart and Laurent Boissel, joint CEO and founders of About Premium Content, said: “We are delighted to receive the Export Awards from TV France International. It proves us right in trusting a young producer, Update Production, on this project. It is a recognition of the remarkable work of our sales team to promote and sell the series to some fifty channels covering over 80 territories in the world. And the story goes on!”

Millimages won for Molang in the animation category. Roch Lener, CEO of Millimages, said: “Molang is the happiness series about friendship and empathy. It won the Export Award because it is also a successful series. It is getting incredible ratings in all of the 200 territories where it is aired. Its presence on the social networks and new media is growing exponentially. Licensing and merchandising has got off to a very promising start worldwide. Molang is a producer’s dream come true!”

Hervé Michel, the president of TV France International, said: “We congratulate the 2018 winners of the Export Awards. They show that the French touch is getting stronger in every corner of the world, despite facing stiff competition. There is no better proof than the record €200 million of international sales of French programs in 2016 (15 percent above the previous year). The marketing and sales strategy of French distributors is a natural extension of the work of the creators, writers, producers and broadcasters who have brought these programs to life.”

Mathieu Béjot, executive director of TV France International, said: “The success of the 2018 winners owes to the diversity of French programs and to their pugnacious exporters who have found the best outlets for them internationally, from historical broadcasters (such as ZDF, Rai, Channel One Russia) to SVOD platforms (such as Hulu or CuriosityStream) through to transnational channels such as Disney, in traditional key territories (Germany, U.K., U.S.A., Italy, Japan etc.) and in fast-growing markets such as India and China. TV France International is proud to help French content owners to sell their programs worldwide all year long by attending trade shows, organizing Le Rendez-Vous, the French Screenings, and offering a B2B online screening platform, Screenopsis.”