BossaNova Expands Development Day

BossaNova has expanded its Development Day, a pitching concept created by founder Paul Heaney, with an additional strand for true crime.

The upcoming Development Day, masterminded by Head of Marketing Jasmin Joseph and Acquisitions and Co-Productions Executive Olivia Morgan, will now have a day focused on true crime, alongside the wider genre of factual. The event is set for January 11 and 12.

The live event portion will take place in a Soho-based screening suite where interact voting will be used to collect data from buyers and provide the ground for greenlighting projects.

The first Development Day took place in January 2021 and saw 29 producers pitch 77 new projects, 20% of which are now in production or advanced funded development.

Morgan said: “Our Development Day is the backbone for our upcoming slate of projects we will be championing next year. We’re aiming to bridge the commissioning gap by putting the right projects in front of key factual buyers, and—using the responses gathered to provide us with clear data for investment criteria—create a slate based on this forensic data. After all, producers just want to produce great TV, and our aim with the Development Days is to streamline the often bumpy road to a green light. With the explosion in interest in true crime, we wanted to concentrate the efforts of our producers and buyers, and so we have a day focused purely on the genre to address the growing demand.”