KYIV CoProduction Meetings 2015 (Kiev, Ukraine)

International television co-production represents a dominant trend in international television and film production industry which is increasingly global in orientation. Co-production provides the means to pool financial, creative and technical resources from participating parties for the production of the content of   various genres. Collaboration of the producers from different countries has the potential of providing fascinating insight into certain topics, development of innovative media forms, entails financial and creative commitments, allows producers to access the new funding and distribution mechanisms etc.

KYIV MEDIA WEEK presents a co-production event, which is unique for the territories of Eastern Europe, Caucasus and CIS countries - KYIV CoProduction Meetings that is focused on theory and practice of international TV content co-production.

KYIV CoProduction Meetings at KYIV MEDIA WEEK (KMW) – is the first content marketplace of our region designed for pitching and promotion of TV projects of different formats that look for co-production, as well as facilitate the co-production market in our region by allowing the local Producers to cooperate with international TV projects. KIEV CoProduction Meetings will become a new regular platform for exchange of experience, discussions and business networking in TV co-production process of the region.

On September 8, in the course of KYIV MEDIA WEEK, KIEV CoProduction Meetings forum took place for the third time. This forum was dedicated to the theory and practice in co-production of TV content.

It opened with a discussion International Co-Production in Europe. Trends and Opportunities with such speakers as Nicola Söderlund, managing partner of  EcchoRights; Mark Edwards, commissioning editor for documentaries at ARTE France TV channel; Axel Arno, commissioning editor for documentaries at SVT channel (Sweden); Johan Seth, producer and chairman of Independent Filmmakers Union (Sweden); Frederic Pittoors d'Haveskercke, founder of Baradal company and consultant of selection commission for Series Mania Festival European Co-Production Forum; and Boris Shefir, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Studio Kvartal 95.The participants discussed the ways of joint financing for various projects, the most popular genres of series production in Europe, in particular the popularity of criminal drama, as well as the opinions of international market participants about Ukrainian documentary films. The discussion was divided into two parts: in the first block, the speakers talked about their vision of co-production tendencies in documentaries and about the target audience for the launch of documentary projects. The second part was dedicated to the joint creation of both full-length feature films and series.  

Frederic Pittoors d'Haveskercke presented a case study of Jordskott, which had Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and UK companies working on it, and talked about the reasons behind the success of co-production among the four countries. In the opinion of Frederic, the most important factor was the popularity of Scandinavian noir dramas as well as the demonstration of the series trailer at European screenings.  

The second case, The Team series, was presented by German producer Andi Wecker from Network Movie Film- und Fernsehproduktion. The teams from Germany, Austria, Denmark, Belgium and Switzerland worked on the project. Wecker also noted the importance of a strong script and support from TV channels.  

The second half of the event featured a pitching session for projects from different countries of the world. Out of several tens of projects sent for participation in KIEV CoProduction Meetings, the experts selected nine finalists. The authors of these projects could present their creations in front of the jury and bring them to the attention of potential partners in the course of pitching. 

The session was opened by the presentation of full-length comedy The Client presented by Kateryna Shevchenko from Kinovyr Film Company.  

The producers of FILM.UA Group Iryna Kostyuk and Anna Eliseeva presented the full-length animation project Mavka. The Forest Song from Ukrainian animation studio Animagrad. Presently the animation strip is in the development stage; its preliminary budget is $5 million. The production is planned in Ukrainian, English and Russian languages.  

The full-length drama The Tank, which is presently in the development stage, was presented at the pitching session by its producer Maksym Serdiuk and director Maksym Ksjonda who represented the Kiev based company Noosphere Films.

The full-length comedy with docureality elements entitled The Contract was presented by Aleksey Durnev. 

The first foreign project of the pitching session was presented by Maciej Kubicki from Polish company TELEMARK. It was a documentary The Hypnotist. The film is already in the production stage and has been filmed since March 2014 in Polish, Ukrainian and Russian languages. 

The next project was presented by Olena Golubieva from Ukrainian studio Chervoniy Sobaka. The company is developing a multi-episode multi-platform animation project Darling Zhuzha.  

The full-length crime thriller SchengenStory was presented at the pitching by Wanda Adamík Hrycová, the head of Slovakian company Wandal  Production. 

The documentary project of Steps through the Air was presented by Lali Kaknavelidze, scriptwriter, producer and director from Georgian company Lira Production. 

The last project was a four-episode war drama The Doctor; its development process was shown by director of Odessa film studio Andrey Zverev and director Konstantin Konovalov.   

In the opinion of the jury headed by Nicola Söderlund, the best projects were The Tank, The Contract and Mavka. The Forest Song. The last one became the winner of this year’s KIEV CoProduction Meetings. The prize was a free accreditation to Filmteractive industry event (Lodz, Poland).  

In case of any questions, please contact project manager Mrs Alla Prelovska +38 044 459 4610 or kiev.coproduction@mrm.ua.