Unifrance‘s Rendez-Vous in Biarritz celebrated its 2023 edition past September with a good taste, both for sellers, who were able to promote seasonal content and for buyers, who took advantage of a ‘boutique market’, supported by Unifrance’s digital viewing platform.
The market continues to maintain the figures of its previous editions: close to 200 buyers and more than 160 sales companies, including producers, agents, and distributors. ‘We are a small market with enormous possibilities of generating business without the haste of large content fairs’, Daniela Elstner, general director of Unifrance, told Prensario.
There were several showcases that sought to promote commercial actions. The first of them was a thematic lunch where projected images from the documentary series Lagerfeld: Ambitious, produced by KM Production, and distributed by STUDIOCANAL, who also sponsored the event.
This was followed on Monday night by the Parliament season 3 showcase, where France tv Distribution organized a cocktail where they showed a preview of this political comedy, with which they intend to add more distribution territories, in addition to Spain, Czech Republic, Sweden, Portugal, USA, Canada, Taiwan and Malaysia. ‘We are surprised with the success in America, since the story exposes the French point of view because we feel that culturally we are very close and we feel that the show should talk to these audiences’, commented the director and screenwriter Noé Debré.
On Wednesday 6th, it had two main screenings: Film & Picture presented Tout cela je te le donnerai (All this I will give to you), a 6-part series directed by Nicolas Guicheteau and produced by Incognita, based on the novel by Spanish Dolores Redondo. And at night, Xilam Animation highlighted its news Athleticus (season 4), Karate sheep, and Zig & Sharko, to the buyers and international press, with the presence of Nicolas Deveaux, creator and director of Athleticus.
On the other hand, one of the highlights of this 29th edition of Rendez-Vous was the long-awaited 2022 French TV Export report, prepared by the National Center for Cinema and the Moving Image (CNC) and Unifrance, where they showed that in 2022, Sales of French TV programs soared to an unprecedented level of €214.8 million, an increase of 15.4% over 2021 and 4.7% over 2017, the previous record prior to 2021. ‘These figures reflect the high quality and diversity of French TV content in all genres, which are enjoying increasing success in the international market. Revenue derived specifically from the export of French programs to foreign platforms continued to rise, accounting for 43.1% of export earnings in 2022 (33.5% in 2021 and 4.6 % in 2013)’, expressed Cécile Lacoue, Director of Statistics and Foresight Studies at CNC.
Regarding the buyers’ searches, Prensario questioned some of the attendees, and they commented: Marine Gombart, Content Acquisition Manager & Partnership at Moment, an IT company that offers content display solutions to transport operators such as airlines and trains, said they were looking for diverse content, like American, Spanish or French films, also documentary content, animation and podcasts; Natalia Panchenko, Head of Content Acquisitions at 1+1 Media (Ukraine), who was in the market to acquire content for her animation channel, due to current limitations to produce her own content; Meanwhile, María Laura Ajmme, Buyer at RAI, was looking for factual content on travel, science, environmental and natural history topics; o Aimery de Montalembert, buyer at Mediawan, stated that company buys about 50 hours of external content a year, and as for RDV was interested in documentaries that touch all topics but with a European region profile.
