During Day 3 of LA Virtual Screenings, the brand new “Testimonials of the Industry” were starred by Mike Beale, Managing Director, ITV Studios (UK) and FRAPA board member, and SadekSabbah, CEO, Cedars Arts Production-Sabbah Brothers (Lebanon). Format trends and MENA region as a high-end production hub.
Yesterday, Michele Rodrigue, CEO and partner, The Format People(Canada)described the format situation, underlining that the segment is ‘dominated’ by large productions studios while the pandemic has affected the sale and the search for partners for most of the indie developers: ‘We hope to be back in business soon enough to bring the most innovative formats to the screen from the most inventive creators’, he remarked.
In the same line, another format expert, Mike Beale, Managing Director, ITV Studios (UK) and FRAPA board member, underlined that there is a ‘real trend’ for nostalgia and feel good programming in the global marketplace: ‘This is because networks need shows that they can relyon and audience can quickly identify. I don’t think this means that new ideas have no place, but we need to work hard to get more of them’, he completed.
One of the biggest protagonists this LA Virtual Screenings is the MENA region, which is showing a strong OTT deployment, while it has solidified its position as a content production hub. A good example is the Lebanese leading production Cedar Arts Production.
Company CEO, SadekSabbah, explained: ‘Despite the different crisis we’ve been going through in MENA, we were able to build a strong content hub for a number of key productions coming from different countries such as Egypt, Arab Gulf, Syria and of course Lebanon. Our group have succeeded in the production of these contents, thanks to the new generation of creative and technical talents’
‘Truly content is the king. Today, if you hold rights over a strong IP, it naturally stands out over the rest and you know better how to explode it through different medias. We are mainly focusing on the digital platforms, which are demanding a big amount of programming including short and long series, non-classical. We have a big line up of projects, beautiful Arabic novels to be adapted and sol to these platforms. One of them is Children of the Alley’, he finalized.
On the four day of LAVS, global executives will continue to take protagonist on the “Testimonials of the Industry” portion of VS Next.
