KMW CoProduction Meetings is over! How did the co-production part of the media forum go?

On September 18 and 19, the KYIV MEDIA WEEK International Media Forum hosted the co-production section KMW CoProduction Meetings, supported by Ukrainian Cultural Foundation as part of the Straightening Capacity of Ukrainian Audiovisual Sector Program. 

On the first day of the event, which began shortly after the main part of the largest media forum in Central and Eastern Europe was over, international producers, invited to search for Ukrainian partners for co-production, presentations their companies. Each of them presented one or more projects that are currently under development and can be co-produced with Ukrainian partners. The Head of Development of the Norwegian company Viafilm David Leader (Devid Leader) introduced the company instead of Anders Tangen, who couldn't make it to Kyiv due to his filming schedule. Davis told about the hits produced by the company, and its experience of creating serials in two languages. The Head of Sales and Co-production of the Canadian company Incendo Gavin Reardon (Gavin Reardon), who was also one of the speakers of KMW content part, shares his experience of co-production with France and how it can be used for co-production of films or series with Ukraine. Gal Zaid, the Head of Drama for Israeli company Endemol Shine, struck the participants of the first day of the show with the showcase of the company’s serials and told about their plans for production of the next project, partially planned for shooting in Ukraine. Rastislav Šesták, Co-owner and Producer of the Slovak studio DNA Production, shared with the audience his project of a full-length film that has a great potential to be co-created with Ukrainian colleagues. Bulgarian producer from the famous production AGITPROP Martichka Bozhilova (Martichka Bozhilova) not only told the audience about the project of the series, set in Kyiv, but also shared the experience of creating large projects in the circumstances of a small market of the Bulgarian audiovisual industry. All participants of the event received copies of the presentations with comprehensive information on potential co-production projects.

The foreign producers begun the second day of the event with an acquaintance with probably the most popular location in Ukraine — Pripyat and the surrounding area. All of them were extremely impressed with the area and emphasized the potential of using it as a location for filming.

Later, Ukrainian producers met their foreign counterparts during brief face-to-face meetings, where they presented their projects and discussed co-production potential of future feature films, documentaries or series. In total, representatives of 28 projects were invited to participate in the individual meetings: LA LISIADA (Valeria Sochivets and Sashko Chubko), CARPATHIA (Nariman Aliev and Marina Stepanska,) MALEVICH (Anna Palenchuk, Valeria Zherikh), CAROL OF THE BELL (Larisa Gutarevich) GLASS CASE (Marina Krasyuk), DARK BREAD (Max Chernysh), DIRT (Taras Stadnikov), UKROTOUR (Anna Rozengert and Roman Rozengurt), BLESSED BY THE SCENE (Nadia Pavlik-Vachkova), EGLE: THE SERPENT'S BRIDE (Artem Ryzhkov and Fedir Alexandrov), PROJECT L (Evgeny Sivkov, Alexander Zhovna, Sergey Kolbinov), A LABYTNANGI FILM (Anna Palenchuk, Valery Zherikh), SHTTL (Rita Grebenchikova), TOTALIZATOR (Alexander Kurmansky, Vladimir Serdyuk), FAMILY VALUES, Nadia Parfan, IMPOSSIBLE IS POSSIBLE. I SIKORSKY (Mikhail Panchenko, Mirza Davitaya, Anna Kostochko), HAPPY NATION (Elisaveta Zavgorodnia, Evgeny Matvienko, Bogdana Grabovska), RED MAFIA (Alexander Omelyanov, Olexiy Mamedov), A HASTY WEDDING (Iryna Tykhomyrova), ZENITH (Niatalia Libet, Olga Reka), MAMAS WITHOUT BORDERS (Olga Zhurzhenko, Desniana Rozhkova, Mila Pichugina), BRATISLAVA BLITZ (Andrey Zabiyaka, Elena Lisnyak, Nadezhda Panichkova), WEREWOLF (Victor Bulyga, Alexander Bochko, Lara Petliy), FREEDOM TASTE (Olena Morentseva-Shulyk).

Each participant of the face-to-face meetings could discuss the questions of co-production with experienced foreign colleagues and offer them partnership. The organizers of CoProduction Meetings hope that soon we will see the fruits of the event: implementation of Ukrainian projects and the close cooperation of Ukrainian producers with foreign productions that were presented at the event.