MIPCOM Spotlight: MarVista Entertainment

A science fanatic boards the wrong bus and winds up at Harold Soccer Academy instead of Harold Academy Australian Semester at Sea in Back of the Net, one of MarVista Entertainment’s kids and family highlights.

“Back of the Net was shot on location in Australia,” says Jody Cipriano, the head of distribution and acquisitions at MarVista Entertainment. “The star of the film, the very talented Sofia Wylie, is known to legions of kids around the globe as the star of the Disney Channel series Andi Mack, and this is her feature-film debut.”

In Driven to Dance, another kid and family offering, a young girl is torn between her own dreams of making it big as a ballet dancer and the expectations of her mother.

MarVista Entertainment is showcasing around 20 new movies at MIPCOM, including A Focus to Kill. Cipriano describes the movie as “an edge-of-your-seat thriller in the same vein as Fatal Attraction.”

Then there’s the adventure thriller Surrounded, about two sisters struggling to survive a dire situation that includes being surrounded by sharks. The movie was filmed on location in Thailand, “so the scenery is just exquisite,” Cipriano says.

Romance abounds in the holiday movie The Perfect Christmas Village, which was filmed in Ireland. “It’s a wonderfully magical and fun film that plays with the notion of waking up from a dream to discover you’re living in your Christmas village holiday display and underscores the true spirit of the holidays,” Cipriano adds.