MipTVOnline Plus Announces Winning Projects

By John Hopewell

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Australia’s “The Drama Queens of Kabul,” the U.K.’s “Pop Paper City” and Spain’s “Before You Hit the Floor” were among winners at the MipTV Online Plus projects competitions, announced Tuesday.

Also, scooping prizes were “Behind Lucy,” again from Spain, South Africa’s “Mother City” and “Bathroom Confessions,” from Lebanon, in a winners’ lineup which is strong on women’s empowerment, ethnic issues, and concepts from not only established TV industries but those in emerging countries as well.

That was seen in the plaudits for the Drama Series Pitch, the base of MipTV and Canneseries’ In Development initiative, which were shared between Rantan Productions’ drama comedy “The Drama Queens Of Kabul,” turning on two Australian women’s attempts to produce Kabul’s first post-Taliban TV soap opera, and “Mother City,” a police procedural in which an FBI-trained forensics cop returns to his native South Africa to confront crimes of an apparently supernatural nature.  Enigma Pictures produces and Moonrise Pictures sells.

Europe’s best known stop-motion animators, Aardman Animations (“Chicken Run,” “Wallace and Gromit”), team with LoveLove Films on kids series pitch winner, 3D “Pop Paper City,” which delivers on its title, portraying the adventures of a group of paper friends in a vibrantly colored world.

Exploring the personal story behind large public events, a building factual trend, “Behind Lucy,” the MipDoc project winner, is a docu-feature recounting the inside story to the preparation of the NASA Lucy mission to the Jupiter Trojans, told through the eyes of its top scientists. Spain’s Somadrome produces.

In MipFormats, Atresmedia Studios, the third-party content producer of Spanish network Atresmedia, won out with a “Before You Hit the Floor,” a rough and ready contest of valor where a contestant has to bungee jump down the elevator of a tall building.

Presented by the Lebanon’s Olive Tree Productions, comedy-drama “Bathroom Confessions,” a ten-part short format series which won the Creative Talent Pitch, records conversations between women in front of  a bathroom mirror.

In past years, projects have been pitched to live industry audiences at Cannes’ MipTV, the world’s second biggest TV trade fair and conference, which was to have run March 28 through April 2. With MipTV cancelled on March 18, however, organizers Reed Midem moved fast to launch digital access to key content via a MipTV Online Plus platform available to MipTV, MipDoc and MipFormats delegates. Projects are now pitched online.

After an estimated 4,000 delegates made use of the service in its first four days, Reed Midem announced a week-long extension to the MipTV Online Plus service, which now ends on April 10.

2020 MIPTV ONLINE PLUS PROJECT PITCH WINNERS

KIDS SERIES PITCH

“Pop Paper City,” (LoveLove Films, U.K.)

CREATIVE TALENT PITCH

“Bathroom Confessions,” (Olive Tree Productions, Lebanon)

EX-AEQUO WINNERS, DRAMA SERIES PITCH

“The Drama Queens of Kabul,” (Rantan Productions, Australia)

“Mother City,” (Enigma Pictures, South Africa)

MIPDOC PROJECT PITCH

“Behind Lucy,” (Somarome, Spain)

MIPFORMATS INTERNATIONAL PITCH

“Before You Hit the Floor,” (Atresmedia Studios, Spain)