miptv
NEWS AFRICA’S M-NET BUYS MOB DRAMA GOMORRAH FROM BETA FILM
Daro Film seals big romcom deal with Great Point Media
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Beta Film’s Gomorrah
BETA FILM has sold its Sky Italia mafia series Gomorrah to M-Net, Africa’s biggest subscription TV network. The series will be screened this month as part of the network’s new foreign-language TV series block on its flagship channel, M-Net 101. The South African MultiChoice Group-owned TV service has only recently opened up to European productions and will broadcast the show in its original version with English subtitles as well as subtitles in local languages. Gomorrah has also sold to India’s DTH service Tata Sky for its Tata Sky World Series service, and to Sundance TV in the US. Beta Film, Sky Italia, Cattleya and Fandango are in post-production on the third series of Gomorrah. Beta Film has also signed a multi-hour deal with African telecommunications group Econet for its recently launched pay-TV service Kwese TV, including 50 German and French movies and other European feature films. All shows will be broadcast in sub-Saharan Africa in their original language with English and locallanguage subtitles.
ONACO-based distribution company Daro Film has closed a deal at MIPTV with Great Point Media for 29 romantic comedy and family TV movies. Twelve of the projects are completed and a further 17 are in production. Titles include Bad Dates Chronicles, It Had To Be You, Secret Summer and Twist Of Fate. Pierre Andre Rochat founded Daro Film 35 years ago after working in marketing for FIFA: “I had always wanted to create my own company so it seemed like the right moment to go for it, but I honestly never thought I’d still be doing it 35 years later,” Rochat said. “While I was at FIFA I had met and become friendly with the creator of The Ghoulies, an animated show which he asked me to distribute, and that’s how the company started.” Since then the company has become nown as a specialist in feature films and these days has a catalogue that includes The Shawshank Redemption, The Player and Papillon. “Alongside our regular partners Hallmark and Lifetime we co finance around films per year, and we have an output deal with French broadcaster TF1,” he added. “We are also looking at TV series but the truth is that films are less of a ris .
Daro Film Distribution founder Pierre Andre Rochat
NTV offers innovation and evolution LAST September, Russian channel NTV announced a change of strategy. “We promised new projects and we are delivering on our promise,” said Timur Weinstein, NTV’s general producer, pointing to his MIPTV slate of new ready-made series, documentaries and formats. e added “ he first string of shows eeps the balance between innovative and evolutionary. We have tried to build up something new, while preserving what our audience loves about us.” Among NTV’s new formats are kids’ vocal contest Superyou!, crime-solving battle Psychics Vs. Detectives and Secret For A Million, in which cele rities share confidences in return for prize money. ew fiction titles include spy drama Devil Hunt, mystery thriller After Death, Soviet
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NTV’s Timur Weinstein: “delivering on our promise”
period drama Our Happy Tomorrow and a lavish adaptation of Aleksei Tolstoy’s trilogy The Road To Calvary, timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Russian revolution. The product line-up also includes new lifestyle and documentary titles.