More than twenty Irish companies have registered to attend the MIPCOM market in Cannes with Enterprise Ireland’s and IFB’s Ireland on Screen stand. Irish companies who will be represented at the market include Adare Productions, Big Mountain Productions, Cartoon Saloon, Brown Bag Films, Screentime Shinawil and Tyrone Productions. MIPCOM will run this year from 4 – 8 October.
The Ireland on Screen stand this year will host a drinks reception on Tuesday, October 5th in association with RTÉ. The Irish Film Board’s Naoise Barry, Teresa McGrane and Emma Scott will all be active throughtout the four day market event meeting with producers and fellow funding bodies.
Paul Young from Cartoon Saloon will bring the groups’ animated series ‘Puffins Rock’ and ‘Pirate Zoe’ to the market where he hopes to meet with broadcasters. He explains that, quite apart from the sale opportunities, he likes MIPCOM because: ”It’s a great place to learn about the workings of the industry and see your place in it.” Fellow animator Cathal Gaffney from Brown Bag Films will see Chorion officially launch the groups CBeebies series ‘Octonauts’ which starts on Monday, October 4th on the BBC. The group will also be promoting its new series with Disney, ‘Doc McStuffins’ and plan to attend several meetings with a view to developing co-production deals and other projects ideas.
Adare Productions’ Brian Graham tells us his team will be introducing programmes such as ‘Underdogs’, ‘The Ex Files’ and new project ’12 Star Hotel’ to fellow MIPCOM attendees. ”Attending MIPCOM is a good fact finding mission,” he tells us. “It’s one of the best places to get a sense of current trends and to get an idea of big shows on the way for 2011. And we can see what formats are going to be big in 2011 and which ones to stay away from.”
Vision Independent Productions’ Philip Kampff and Orla McGowan are also bringing with them numerous projects. Chief amongst these are ‘Secret Chef’, ‘Take on the Takeaway’, ‘Operation Transformation’, ‘Super Gradens’ and their ongoning series ‘Do the Right Thing’.
Magma Films’ Ralph Christians will bring with him an eclectic mix of programmes including new event TV movie ‘Little Lady Fortenroy’, a co-production with Yellowbird Productions; 90 minute crime drama ‘Jack Taylor’ and hour long drama ‘De Burgo’ the pilot of which is to start shooting after MIPCOM. These will be promoted alongside the groups animated projects which include the company’s first foray into stereoscopic films – ‘Oops Noah is Gone’, ‘Thor’ and ‘Niko II’. Christians explains they have a very definite reason for attending the festival “For us MIPCOM is the most important film festival and market,”he states. ”Our company is based in the middle of nowhere in Ireland so really no-one is going to come to us so it saves us a lot of travelling to just meet all of these people in MIPCOM rather than go to see them individually.”
Network Ireland Television (NITV) will be represented by Sadhbh Murphy and Derry O'Brien, the latter of whom will be attending the event for the 16th year in a row. NITV will be launching three new series at this year’s market - ‘Simply Painting in China’, the first Frank Clarke series in five years; ‘On the Fly’, a new fly-fishing series from Loosehorse productions and Sherwin Media Group’s ‘Tracks and Trails’, about Ireland’s walkways and bicycle and BMX trails.
Derry tells IFTN the market has served his company well in recent years, and he expects this year to be no different: “We are looking forward to introducing these new series and other recent documentaries like ‘On God’s Mission’ (Tyrone Productions), ‘Show me the Mummy’ (Borderline Productions), ‘Ballybrando’ (HotShot Productions) and a drama called ‘Scapegoat’ (Waddell Media), to our existing international TV clients,”he says.“We are confident that our buyers will respond positively to these programmes and seek to acquire them for their respective territories. MIPCOM has definitely become one of the most important markets for our business”.
The other members of the Irish contingent who will travel to Cannes for next week’s event include Boulder Media’s Peter Lewis and Anne Tweedy; Caboom’s Damian Farrell and Joanne Roboz; Dublin Film Distributors’ Donal McGuiness; Jam Media’s John Rice; Like It Love It Productions’ Andy Ruane; Screentime Shinawil’s Larry Bass; Sideline’s Billy McGrath; Telegael’s Paul Cummins, Grainne Mc Namara, Fred Schaefer and Barabara Slade; Tile Films’ Stpehen Rooke and Tyrone Productions’ Patricia Carroll.
MIPCOM 2010 runs from October 4th to 8th. For more information about this year’s event visit www.mipcom.com
