EXCLUSIVE: French tv program sellers are putting further impetus on this week’s Paris screenings occasions with MIPTV not on their schedules.
A number of sources in French distribution have informed Deadline that the third French TV Screenings (now often known as the Paris TV Screenings) might develop within the absence of MIPTV, France‘s second-largest tv market till its demise final yr.
They’re going down underneath the auspices of French movie and TV export physique Unifrance’s twenty seventh Rendez-Vous in Paris. The annual occasion, which launched within the late Nineteen Nineties with a deal with cinema, expanded its remit to TV following Unifrance’s merger with TV France Worldwide in 2021.
Main France-based sellers akin to Mediawan, Newen Connect and France TV Distribution will be a part of smaller boutiques akin to Movie & Image, Studiofact Rights, Balanga and Terranoa in showcasing new reveals on the Paris Pathé Parnasse cinema from Jan 14 to 16, and taking conferences on the Movie & TV Content material Market within the close by Pullman Resort which runs throughout the week.
Round 100 TV patrons are anticipated to be within the Metropolis of Mild throughout the week, and hopes are excessive that the occasion can capitalize on current occasions.
“This yr, we gained’t have MIPTV, which was important to us even with the lowering numbers,” mentioned Marie-Laure Hébrand, founder and Government Director of Movie & Image, which is screening four-part feminine serial killer drama The Black Widow. “On the Paris Screenings, all the broadcasters can have their new budgets and are beginning to purchase.”
The Black Widow, which launched on France 2 final yr and is from Episode Productions, stars Odile Vuillemin as a serial killer based mostly on a real-life case in France through which a girl murdered three of her former husbands earlier than being apprehended trying to kill the fourth. “The present did extraordinarily properly in France, with round 4 million viewers every episode, and saved that quantity steady,” mentioned Hébrand. “The individuals who got here, stayed.”
We perceive Movie & Image is heading into the occasion with pre-sales secured with Antena 3 in Spain and Rai in Italy, with a purchaser within the U.S. trying seemingly, together with others in Central and Japanese Europe and Portugal.
Hébrand will journey to Collection Mania within the northern French metropolis of Lille in March, however is undecided on whether or not she is going to make the journey to MIP London, the UK occasion that’s ostensibly changing MIPTV and runs concurrently with the London TV Screenings. “Fiction patrons will attend Collection Mania and they’re going to improve with disappearance of MIPTV,” she mentioned.
She doesn’t know what number of acquisitions executives will attend MIPTV, which is being held on the Savoy Resort and adjoining IET London convention heart, assuming most on the town will follow the screenings format that has developed to such a level over current years. It’s a query we’ve heard quite a few occasions over current months. No distributor desires to take a position their cash within the flawed place within the tough market of 2025.
For its half, MIP London organizer RX France told Deadline last month that 350 patrons had signed up, and that there’s an expectation of as much as 2,000 delegates attending in complete.
Unifrance’s Government Director Daniela Elstner mentioned it’s not possible to foretell how MIP London will affect the patrons’ market, however believes the Paris TV Screenings can revenue from the creating scenario, particularly with the favored two-day MIPDoc occasion in Cannes unlikely to be of the identical scale in London. “Particularly for factual distributors, there’s something lacking,” she added. “Hopefully, we are able to begin one thing with our occasion.”
In the direction of the tip of 2024, Elstner notes, patrons and sellers instantly appeared extra conscious that MIPTV wouldn’t be occurring and nervousness set in, with a staple of their schedules gone. “Nobody is aware of what MIP London goes to seem like, so you possibly can both be troubled or you possibly can reshape and deal with it as a possibility,” she provides. “I’m extra for the second. There’s a shift and you must adapt.”
Adapting is precisely what Unifrance did final yr when it moved its different important TV occasion, which additionally operates underneath the Rendez-Vous model, to Le Havre, Normandy. Subsequent up, in a TV sense, is constructing out the Paris screenings and a daring strategy is being taken. In earlier years, the movie and TV promotion physique had puzzled if an occasion in January was flawed for patrons, however the current adjustments have altered pondering.
“Many broadcasters and streamers would shut their budgets on the finish of 1 yr after which begin new ones and didn’t wish to spend an excessive amount of, so we at all times puzzled if the date was slightly too early within the yr,” mentioned Elstner. “However with the shifts we’ve seen, we now suppose, quite the opposite, it’d begin one thing for the brand new yr.”
Powerful yr forward as sellers prep wares
Whether or not the new-look worldwide schedule adjustments enterprise or not, distributors in France are bracing for one more troublesome yr. Figures released at Rendez-Vous in September confirmed worldwide gross sales of French TV reveals had been €203M ($208M) in 2023, down 5.3% on 2022 as patrons withheld spend.
Cloë Pinot, Worldwide Gross sales Supervisor at one other boutique distributor, Balanga, acknowledged 2024 had been “powerful for everybody.” It really represented a superb yr for Paris-based Balanga regardless of the overall “low quantity of acquisitions, low costs and delays in responses,” however highlighted the necessity for boutiques to be “very exact concerning the tasks we tackle,” she added.
Balanga, which celebrated a decade in enterprise final yr, has navigated by way of by focusing totally on docs, and dipping into scripted when alternatives come up. One such occasion will see it pitching Deadline (no, not us), a comedy-drama a couple of younger drug addict performed by singer-actor Soko, who seeks to repay her debt by working in a palliative care dwelling and stealing its medicine, just for a affected person to rumble her and demand she helps grant their final want or be uncovered.
“It has a really comedic, sarcastic tone and may be very bittersweet,” mentioned Pinot. “The lead position may be very properly written, as she goes from solely seeing the job as a technique to pay again her seller to creating a friendship with the affected person. It’s her redemption path. The topic and tone is exclusive and units the collection aside, as nobody else is speaking about demise on this approach.”
Balanga and Deadline producer Mesdames Manufacturing have tailored what was initially a six-part half-hour collection into three business hours that may higher serve worldwide broadcast slots, and have mentioned turning it right into a telemovie if desired. Scores for the present on OCS in France had been good, Pinot mentioned, whereas noting that Cesar-nominated actress Soko, who lives between L.A. and Paris, has written authentic materials for the collection. It’s a superb instance of the numerous, various nature of the reveals that round 50 TV distributors will likely be presenting to patrons throughout the week in Paris at Rendez-Vous.
That want for distinction is clear, as even France’s bigger distributors have been challenged within the face of a readjusting worldwide market. Randall Broman, Head of Worldwide Gross sales — Scripted Content material at The Depend of Montecristo vendor Mediawan Rights mentioned that final yr “offered challenges for our whole trade,” however that his firm “efficiently navigated this panorama by way of a high-quality lineup that permits us to reply quickly to ever-evolving market calls for.”
Mediawan Rights will likely be launching Prime Video France drama Expensive You, which Broman mentioned “involves market at a time when audiences are on the lookout for uplifting and entertaining collection.” The 15-part collection — from Elephant Story and made by Aurélie Belko, Julie-Albertine Simonney and Sébastien Le Délézir — follows a brand new visitor relations supervisor (Carla Poquin) on the Resort Folie, the place she has to juggle extravagant buyer requests and meets a horny billionaire resort visitor launching a novel relationship app.
After Elise Castel and Charlotte Denaud from Elephant Story bought rights to Emily Blaine’s decade-old novel of the identical identify, they rapidly bought the mission to Amazon. “There was an enormous adaptation problem for this collection,” mentioned Denuad. “First, as a result of the story within the novel takes place in New York, and we needed to adapt it to Paris, and secondly, as a result of Emily wrote this novel greater than 10 years in the past, and since then society has developed, as have relationships between women and men. We actually needed to anchor this collection in at present’s Paris and paint a present and fashionable portrait of the younger era.”
Denaud added that the high-end look of the drama meant Prime Video’s native funding was not sufficient to cowl the funds, and that intelligent manufacturing methods and extra finance had been wanted. “As we consider this collection has actual worldwide potential — romantic comedy is a style that exports properly and Paris stays the Capital of Love — we rapidly approached Mediawan Rights, a distributor we all know properly,” mentioned Denaud. “They reacted enthusiastically as quickly as they learn the scripts and allowed us to finish the funds.”
In fact, France has the added funding layer of the CNC, which operates independently of presidency and is ready to get a various array of genres into manufacturing, alongside robust public and business broadcasters and world streamers akin to Prime Video which have purchased into the thought of the native market. “That’s precisely how one can make these stunning collection,” she added.
For Nadia Chevallard, SVP of Distribution at Newen Join, which is on the town launching relationship drama A Widespread Curiosity, the French TV Screenings play an essential position within the calendar as the primary market of the yr, and “the best place and time to introduce model new French drama collection to the worldwide market.”
A Widespread Curiosity stars Cécile Bois (Drops of God, Candice Renoir), Antonia Desplat (Shantaram, Three Days of the Wing of Insanity) and Thierry Neuvic and follows an unconventional threesome, of kinds. It follows a 50-year-old, working-class lady, Rita, whose husband, Olivier, has been having an affair with a 35-year-old, Olympe, who has lived the lifetime of privilege. Someway Rita finally ends up as Olympe’s assistant they usually type an odd couple bond, simply as Olivier tries to win Rita again.
Marie Dupuy d’Angeac, a producer at A Widespread Curiosity maker Barjac, additionally a part of Newen Join’s mum or dad Newen Studios, known as the collection “very French — a common story, a threesome in love, set in a horny luxurious area, [fashion store] Hermes in Paris,” including, “We’ve got a terrific feminine duo that individuals can acknowledge, fascinating and terribly endearing.”
One other Barjac producer, Lolita Franchet, mentioned the present was atypical for French linear TV, making it arduous to finance. “We’re extra used to broadcasting crime or thriller collection — reveals the place the folks know completely properly what they’re going to observe,” she added. “Right here, the script generates lots of questions: What is going to the present seem like exactly? It’s comedy? Is it a drama? Is it about love? Is it an workplace drama? We regularly have to elucidate the present’s intent and our imaginative and prescient, and we have to reassure people who it’s a character-driven collection however with excessive dramatic stakes.”
Finally, this yr’s Paris TV Screenings will mirror its members’ need to be nearer to worldwide patrons and begin enterprise earlier, mentioned Unifrance’s Elstner. “Psychologically, there’s a swap from one yr to the following, and we hope the Paris Screenings provide one thing for patrons and distributors that begins a brand new push forward of what’s comes after,” she added.
For Mediawan’s Broman, “The energy of French manufacturing lies not solely in its persistently enhancing high quality over time but in addition in its range. French manufacturing corporations have developed considerably, now creating content material with a worldwide mindset. This transformation has allowed them to adapt to the ever-changing worldwide market and place them as a key participant within the world tv and movie trade.”
Precisely how world they’ve develop into will develop into clear subsequent week.
