The first ever MENA Pavilion opened its doors at MIPCOM in Cannes this morning, bringing TV shows, movies and other content from the region to one of the world’s largest gatherings of buyers and distributors in one place for the first time ever.
MIPCOM is Cannes’ annual meeting point for some of the world’s most influential buyers of content, particularly from the TV world, and the MENA pavilion will be showcasing high-quality original Arabic drama, documentaries, lifestyle and kids’ titles from major award-winning producers such as Cedars Art, Eagle Films, Rotana, Ro’ya and Abu Dhabi Media.
Heba Korayem, client director of the mena.tv content hub, which is co-sponsoring the pavilion, noted: "Script development and production values have come into in line with international standards, and we are now seeing a trend towards Arabic productions being made available in several languages."
He added: “There have been exponential advances in quality from the region recently.”
There is also a strong presence from regional buyers at this year's event, with senior figures from MBC, Fox, Zee and the Saudi Broadcast Authority all in attendance. As part of this year's MENA focus, the MIPCOM conference programme will also feature a session later today, at 5.15pm UAE time, entitled What Do MENA Buyers Want? at which senior figures from some of the region's biggest broadcasters will reveal what they look for when buying international content.
Nick Grande, CEO of mena.tv will moderate, and also present exclusive MENA buying data from the past 12 months. The session, says Grande, is "essential viewing" for distributors wishing to sell more content in the region.
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