Digital MIPTV welcomes 38 Russian companies participating in the event and 12 of them presenting newest projects within the distribution market. This year MIPTV highlights START original “Container” selected for MIPDrama competition, “Lives of others” enlisted in the Doc&Factual Showcase, as well as newest series “Happy End”, “Vampires of the Midland”, “Mediator”, “The New Guy” and many others.
MIPDrama series competition highlighted the series “Container” produced by START subscription-based service and Yellow, Black and White. The project starring Oksana Akinshina (“Sputnik”) is directed by Maxim Sveshnikov, who previously shot the internationally successful series “257 Reasons to Live”.
Among the works selected by the experts for an exclusive showcase of international documentary and factual content is the Russian project “Lives of others” produced by 1-2-3 Production. The series tells about the lives of migrant women who left their homes and families and came to Moscow to work.
The subscription-based service START (founded in 2017 by the producers who have created Yellow, Black and White) will present a dedicated showcase, which will include the original TV series of the subscription-based service START, as well as the documentary series “Fortress. Russian Finance: The Faces Behind”. Among START original projects are gothic comedy-drama “The Vampires of Midland”, nail-biting psychological thriller “Mediator”, young-adult drama “The New Guy”, afterlife mystery series “Passengers” and START’s popular rehab drama “Addicted”.
NTV will also host a showcase of its flagship projects for international buyers within the Digital MIPTV platform. The line-up includes 2 non-scripted formats – “Superstar” featuring music idols of the 90s and 00s and quiz and talk show “Secret for a Million”, shortlisted for the Content Innovation Awards last year. Among fresh NTV dramas are series “Fatherland”, sports drama “Kamaz. Extreme Racing” about the strongest truck racing team KAMAZ-master, historical projects “The Darkest Hour” and “Noble Detective”, as well as the prime hits of NTV – “Beyond Death”, “Sunshine Investigations”, “Wolf Trap”, “Flashpoint” and “Dr. Driver”.
“Within the last years Russian TV series have been following key international trends without losing unique storytelling that appeals to global viewers: “To The Lake”, “257 Reasons to Live”, “Ordinary Woman”, “Better Than Us” and many others have already won over international audiences. Since production in Russia hasn’t paused for too long, having resumed last summer with Covid-19 safety measures to be respected, this year Russian producers are able to present brand-new projects at MIPTV, including the series “Container” selected for MIPDrama, and documentary series “Lives of Others”, marked by MIPTV experts and many others,” says Alexandra Modestova, CEO of Expocontent (official representative of MIPTV and MIPCOM in Russia, Ukraine and CIS).
In total, representatives of 38 companies from Russia will participate at Digital MIPTV, 12 of them will present their projects within the distribution market. Among them are the Central Partnership, GMP ETV (Gazprom media – Entertainment Television), NTV, the official distributor of Russia Television and Radio’s content Sovtelexport, Art Pictures Distribution, 1-2-3 Production, TV channel Friday, Odin-Media, Signal Media, as well as animation companies Soyuzmultfilm, Riki Group, and animation studio Platoshka.
Art Pictures Distribution company will present projects of CTC Media, original more.tv series and documentary film “Battle”. Among original more.tv series are “Psycho” directed by Fyodor Bondarchuk, “Chiks” by Eduard Oganesyan, and absolutely new projects directed by Yevgeny Sangadzhiev “Happy End” and “Ballet”. Among CTC Media projects are the comedy series “Lanky girls”, “Let’s go”, “Guests from the Past” and one of the most successful CTC TV channel series “Ivanovs VS. Ivanovs”. The projects “Children VS. Adults”, “Beauty Formula”, “Hometown” sitcom and “Fixer” reality show will also be offered as formats.
Besides its showcase NTV will offer brand-new drama “The Missing”, based on the experience of the largest Russian search and rescue team, period crime series “Savage” focusing on ruthless Nazi collaborator search in 70th USSR and “Noble Detective” – a classic mystery series set in Tsarist Russia.
The line-up of Sovtelexport, the official distributor of Russia Television and Radio’s content, will feature new TV series “The Terrible”, “The Optimists: Caribbean Season”, “Call Me Mother” as well as already well-known projects “Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes”, “Ekaterina: Pretenders”, and “The Blood Widow”. Sovtelexport will also present documentary projects – “Homo Sperans” directed by Andrey Konchalovsky, “The Wall”, “Beslan” and “Kresty” – the first Russian documentary on Netflix.
At MIPTV, the company plans to close sales of the series “Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes” for Slovakia and MENA countries, continue negotiations on the sales of “Firing Range” TV show to China and Japan and the first season of the series “The Optimists” to Australia.
GPM ETV (Gazprom-Media Entertainment Television) will present two key projects – a comedy and music competition show “Sing Your Heart Out” produced by Comedy Club Production and TV series “Ikotka” – a mystical folk adventure thriller produced by Good Story Media and marked at Fresh TV Fiction rating during MIPCOM 2020.
The slate of 1-2-3 Production consists of Karen Oganesyan’s “The Big Game”, co-produced with Amedia Production, new series “Psycho” (“Glitch”), a thriller “Insomnia”, and documentary series “Lives of Others”, which will also be shown within Doc&Factual MIPTV showcase.
TV channel Friday will present comedy series “Superdad” , dramedy “Suburbia”, survival reality “The Tribe” and the first TV TikTok show “TikTok Talent”. The channel plans to continue negotiations on the sales of its projects for Eastern and Central Europe countries, the Baltic region, Latin America and Japan.
Odin-Media brings at MIPTV a large-scale documentary project “Invisible Hope”, “The Deepest Cave on Earth” and “The Great North Way” documentary films, the new season of TV-show “Combat Approved”, successfully launched in Japan, China, Vietnam, and Taiwan, and military drama “Dzhulbars – The Soviet War Dog”. Among projects open for co-production Odin-Media will present a documentary film “Into the Arctic”. Odin-Media company has already reached preliminary agreements on the sales of projects’ package to Italy, Japan and Taiwan.
Key projects of SMF Studio are 3D musical series “Rockoons” and animated series “Meow Magic”. SMF also plans to find co-production partners for TV series “Umka and his Friends”, “Beware, monkeys!”, “The Farm”, the full-length 3D project “The Formula for Water” and “The Golden Beehive”.
Riki Group top offerings are animated series “Tina&Tony”, “The Fixies”, which became prime hits on Chinese streaming platforms in 2020, “Kikoriki”, “Babyriki”, “PinCode” as well as the newest projects “Beardy Bodo” and “Panda and Krash”, co-produced with Chinese CCTV and sold to Brazil, Germany, Croatia and Montenegro. Within MIPTV Riki together with its sales agent APC Kids plans to announce several deals on “Dinocity” project with France and Middle East in particular. The company also plans to finalise deals with Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia and Germany.
Moscow-based animation studio Platoshka announces the launch of musical series “Beadies”, as well as projects ready for co-production – 2D series “Agatha: Queen of the Garden” and “Cat Been-In-Use” and 3D series “Antron”.
