The MIPDOC held at the Carlton Hotel will bring together 800 participants including 400 international buyers who will be offered over 1,360 recent programmes for consultation. Among the key guest speakers, Luis Silberwasser (Discovery Networks International) will discuss the need to adapt documentary production to create content that addresses both local and global audiences, while Patricia Boutinard Rouelle (France Televisions), will look at documentary trends in France and around the world.
As part of the MIPDOC Co-Production Challenge, six documentary projects including Norway's Padre Fortea: The Exorcist produced by Gammaglimt will be submitted to an international jury comprising head of jury Hamish Mykura, Channel 4 Head of Documentaries, and jury members Axel Arno (SVT Commissioning Editor), Iikka Vehkalahti, (Commissioning Editor, Documentary, YLE TV2), Nick Cohen (Multiplatform Commissioning Executive, Knowledge, BBC), and Karen Michael (Commissioning Editor for ARTE France). ‘Crowdsourcing-the Frontier of Documentary Funding' will be the theme of the conference on Sunday, exploring the merits of the new financing method.
Co-productions will also be at the heart of MIP TV2011, in particular fiction co-productions during two days of conferences and networking sessions held during the Producers' Forum (April 4-5). On Monday, five case studies will unveil the inside story of co-producing high end drama in Europe. Zentropa's Peter Engel and Peter Garde will be on hand to present Babylon, a 12x45' TV series about political alliances, corruption, murder and fraud inside and around the EU. European partners attached to the ‘euro-noir' include DR, Arte France, Capa Drama and RTE.
Leading Nordic sales companies attending MIP TV include DR Sales (The Government, The Good Life), SVT Sales (WikiRebels, Inspector Winter), Nordic World (Underworld Trilogy, Draw with Oistein), TrustNordisk (Those Who Kill, Clown), NonStop Sales (Liverpool Goalie, I am My Own Dolly Parton), SF International (Cornelius, Maria Wern), Yellow Affair (with the brand new documentary A Bitter Taste of Freedom about Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya), and LevelK (Norwegian Cozy, Lost in Africa).