WorldScreenings: Serious Lunch’s Genevieve Dexter

The educational live-action series Operation Ouch! has been going strong on CBBC for eight seasons, with season nine in production and a slew of global sales to boot. When one of the twin doctors fronting the show contracted a mild case of the coronavirus, the team sprang into action to use the series as a teaching tool for young ones about health and hygiene related to COVID-19.

 

It’s this type of informative, and yet oh-so-entertaining, kids’ content that broadcasters are looking for these days, according to Genevieve Dexter, the founder and CEO of Serious Lunch. She also points to fantasy as an in-demand genre among children’s programming buyers at present. With its highly curated catalog—featuring shows such as the live-action adventure series The New Legends of Monkey and Tik Tak, which focuses on cognitive development for toddlers—Serious Lunch is ready to deliver.

Dexter spoke to Kristin Brzoznowski, World Screen’s executive editor, via video conference about launching new IP, such as The World According to Willow Wong, and staying connected amid the current global lockdown. Also the founder and CEO of the animation studio Eye Present, Dexter is able to speak from both a distribution and production perspective on the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. With a spirit of optimism, she believes there will be “an outpouring of beautifully developed properties” to come from the additional time and attention for projects that are in the development phase, once production is back to firing on all cylinders.

See Serious Lunch’s Spring 2020 Showcase here.