Back in Budapest, Hungary, Laura Fornelio, Onza’s sales manager, told Prensario that CEE is a ‘key’ region for the distributor’s growth. ‘We are very happy to have returned since here we see clients who often do not travel to the MIPs, and they are essential to be able to follow up at the CEE,’ she highlighted.
The executive highlighted that Onza participates in NATPE Budapest International ‘with a full agenda’, and announced that it is a reference market in which they will continue to participate year after year: ‘CEE is an important region for us, since it is a great consumer of soap operas. Although the Turkish ones continue to be very important, there is always room for clients who want to differentiate themselves from their audience. Southern and Eastern Europe have many consumption habits in common, so it is easy for both fiction and documentaries to travel in the area,’ she added.
Finally, Fornelio addressed the expectations: ‘We are meeting with all kinds of clients. We want to highlight our most recent co-production with Portugal, Motel Valkirias (8x’50) which will finally be broadcast at the end of this summer in Spain and Portugal. Buyers have high expectations with the first chapter’. At the end of 2021, Onza closed an agreement with the Galician production company CTV to handle the international sales of this thriller co-produced by CTV and TV de Galiica (TVGa), on the one hand, and SPi and RTP (Portugal), on the other.
The executive concluded: ‘On the other hand, we are closing some of our soap operas in the region, countries such as the Baltics, Poland or Bulgaria are key to our international expansion.
