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Tag: Noga Hilton

  • Digitisation helps triple screenings at MIPDOC 2005

    Digitisation helps triple screenings at MIPDOC 2005

    CANNES: Digitisation of the programmes showcased at MIPDOC this year helped the number of screenings made onsite shoot up by 2.5 times over that of last year.

    While MIPDOC 2004 saw 8,857 screenings, the number went up to 22,650, enabled by the smart cards that helped potential buyers watch the shows on monitors set up at convenient locations at the Noga Hilton, where MIPDOC concluded on Sunday night.

    MIPDOC this year roped in more companies than last year, registering a five per cent increase, with 386 companies registering. Sixty-one countries, as against 53 last year, were represented, according to the final figures released by the Reed MIDEM officials. 619 participants, as against 539 in 2004, registered their presence. The number of programmes presented too went up from 1,031 to 1,057.

    Top 10 companies at MIPDOC by country included France with 63 companies, USA with 47 companies, Canada with 37, Germany with 28 companies and Italy with 22 companies.

    Among the programmes that were screened the most were Fremantle’s The Story of 1, Channel 4’s The Real Da Vinci Code, AETN International’s Beyond the Da Vinci Code, Tele Images International’s Miracle Planet II and Parthenon Entertainment’s 5th Dimension.

  • Indian docu makers ESP Films win international pitch at MIPDOC

    Indian docu makers ESP Films win international pitch at MIPDOC

    CANNES: The Indian documentary duo of ‘Harry’ Amarpal Singh Bal and Rishi Rana Bharadwaj has won a fiercely contested pitch at the MIPDOC co-production challenge held at Cannes on Sunday evening.

    ‘Highway in my veins’, a documentary proposal about truckers in India, was selected as the best among the five shortlisted producers who pitched their ideas to a prestigious international panel of broadcasters at the Noga Hilton, the MIPDOC venue, yesterday. With a cutting edge presentation comprising a promo shot on beta and followed with an exceptional power point presentation made by Bharadwaj, a known name in the voice over circuit in India, the duo swept the decision of the jury and the audience in their favour.

    ESP (Entertainment Solutions Providers) Films, the production house floated by Harry and Rishi, have already been approached by Channel Four and Discovery for completing the documentary, shooting for which, is slated to be completed over 60 days between June and December this year. The house has already put in $ 23,000 into the venture and is now looking for an additional $ 125,000 to complete the docu.

    ESP Films boasts a team with extensive experience in various genres of international and Indian television programming. Harry, who comes with experience as an editor at Miditech, says the idea for ‘Highway in my veins’ has been in the research stage for nearly one and a half years. The proposed documentary traces the life of the truckers as they criss cross the country’s highways, the humiliations they suffer and their long absences from home. It talks about how their day often ends with release in the form of often unprotected sex. The film plans to trace the life of three truckers from the eastern Uttar Pradesh and Punjab belt, one of whom has tested HIV positive.

    Incidentally, this is the duo’s first time at MipTV, and the first time that they participated in an international pitch. Says Indiantelevision Dot Com Pvt Ltd CEO Anil Wanvari, who is the Reed Midem representative in India, “Indian companies are beginning to make a mark at MipTV. This year, we have had an unprecedented presence at the market in Cannes. The fact that ESP Films won the documentary pitch is going to be a further shot in the arm for the Indian TV and documentary producers who want to make a mark internationally.”

    Harry says the effort in preparing for ‘Highway in my veins’ has been on shortening the research period by relying less on indirect methods of Internet and archival research, and instead going directly into the field for getting hands on information and interacting with the truckers. ESP Films, which makes TVCs, promo films and corporate films, is also toying with several other documentary proposals at the ongoing MipTV market. These include ‘Bhikshuni’, which traces the life of Buddhist nuns, a film on the unknown facets of sandalwood smuggler ‘Veerappan’, and ‘Floating Lamp on the Shadow Valley’, a film on life in strife torn Kashmir.

  • What’s hot in docs? Good stories

    What’s hot in docs? Good stories

    CANNES: What’s hot in docs? The same as is to be expected if truth be told.

    Good content allied to the creative use of the latest technologies (which are getting easier to access because of equipment costs continuously coming down) is the ultimate killer application.

    Storyboards need to have universal appeal if they’re to have global outreach. But more often than not, a documentary TV and film makers has to have stories rooted in his/her cultural milieu uppermost in mind if he is to make an immediate impact.

    These were some of the points highlighted during a Saturday evening session at the Noga Hilton in Cannes where MIPDOC screenings and discussions are being conducted. Moderated by Debra Zimmerman, executive director, Women Make Movies Inc, speakers included Boreales’ Frederic Fougea, Paperny Films president David Paperny, Canadian Film Board film programs director-general Tom Perlmutter and First hand Films’ CEO Esther Van Messel.

    A point that was made during the session was that the ‘downflow’ of newer techniques and equipment was allowing for a ‘real opening of new creative expression’ in art.

    Fougea inserted a cautionary note into the optimistic picture, however, when he pointed out that due to the increasing clutter of ‘media noise’ it was increasingly more difficult to ‘get heard.’ This meant that huge outlays were needed towards marketing efforts if documentaries were to have a serious shot at making a mark.

    The increasing demand of big broadcasters like Discovery and National Geographic for producers to switch to high definition (HD) TV formats were also mentioned as a cost escalator, though there was agreement that this was the future as far as television was concerned.

  • MIPCOM kickstarts in Cannes

    MIPCOM kickstarts in Cannes

    CANNES: The picturesque southern France escape for most of the world’s creme de la creme. It never looked better. And October is the time when it plays host to the world’s biggest television market, MipCom, just as it does to the property, music, the film and advertising and festivals at other times of the year.
    The sun rises on MIPCOM 2004 in Cannes

    The climate: well in the day it borders on the warm and humid and wearing a suit to meetings as you walk down the Croisette next to the famed Palias de Festivals for your next meeting at the Hotel Majestic or the Noga Hilton is a no-no. The sweat just drips and you are forced to peel off your blazer.

    Indiantelevision.com founder CEO Anil Wanvari at Cannes

    On the Croisette a bunch of kids from Peru are dressed up as Indians and performing as a music band. Another group of teenagers are skateboarding, performing leaps in the air and stunts as they try and impress each other. A young man in camouflage pants is working hard at earning the sympathy of the tourist packed city by throwing flames into the air from his mouth. A little further down outside a Gucci store an old man turns a hurdy-gurdy machine and churns out old world music for passerbys and begs for money. Outside a sandwich van – many such vans line the promenade – a young man with his dog, unshaven, looking sickly and homeless with his dog has dozed off on the pavement.

    Two older but extremely fit looking men wearing Armani suits, Tissot watches, strut the promenade with a luscious young thing sandwiched between them arm in arm. And the beach is cluttered with bodies clad in skimpy bikinis and tiny swim suits. Closer to the Hotel de Ville about five minutes from the Palais a flea market is in full swing with antiques, clothes and books on sale. Cannes definitely lives up to its reputation and does not lack for colour.

    As the evening sun dips behind the mountains in the distance, the temperature drops and people once again don their jackets, blazers while the ladies wrap scarves around their necks.
    A Korean band playing at the opening night of MIPCOM

    There is a loud buzz all round. TV and licensing executives from more than 100 countries are assembled as they try to hawk their latest concepts formats and shows. Some are looking for funding, some for coproduction deals, some for outright sales, some for licensing and merchandising contracts with the world’s leading toy makers who have also made MipCom a rendezvous point. The Palais, we are told is expanding in the next two years, with more exhibition space coming up under the sidewalk, which has the handprints of hundreds of film stars from Hollywood, Europe and other regions. More competition for other regions which are looking at matching Cannes fabulous facilities.

    TV division boss Paul Johnson views this as opportunity for the market. “There are exciting times ahead,” he says. “We have had fabulous growth numbers this year for the market with double digit growth once again.”

    In the Noga Hilton a host of acquisition and production executives have been meeting over Saturday and Sunday, huddled in the lobby, trying to crack that next animation or kid’s show blockbuster. The action has been on at MipCom Junior as several of them have ensconced themselves in the screening booths, watching the numerous screeners companies have entered. One scouts former UTV Toons head Biren Ghose, who says he is mentoring youngsters who have big dreams for animation. This apart, he is looking at notching up some animation contracts for his fledgling company Animation Bridge.

    In the conference room, a pitching session organised by Licensing magazine is on where four finalists are pitching their concepts for animation series and licensing programmes to a jury consisting of toy executives, licensing managers. One of them Bernard by BRB Entertainment is outstanding, and features a polar bear who ends up getting beaten in every minute or so episode by the elements as he makes a trip around the world. Bernard, a silent series, is outstandingly funny and the judges in unison applauds the effort.

    MipCom Junior, the smaller sibling will give way to big brother MipCom which takes up all four floors of the Palais and the Riviera behind. Star, Sony, Weg India, Landmark are some of the Indian companies which have bought stand space in a bid to sell their content to the world.

    It gets flagged off on 4 October. Reed Midem promises it will be action-packed. But more on that later.