KEY BUYERS EVENT: 1600 PARTICIPANTS FROM OVER 80 COUNTRIES

The international online content market Key Buyers Event: Digital closed its third edition which gathered over 1600 participants from 80 countries, with more than 550 online meetings held between global distributors, producers, and the Russian community.

Evgeniya Markova, Roskino CEO explained: "We have been running the event for three years now, and both global and Russian markets have significantly transformed. Our mission is to make the whole market transparent for all global players, to highlight the latest trends and new opportunities for all international partners. This year we succeeded, gathering 1600 participants from over 80 countries, with over 750 international delegates. We had 5500 views of Russian content at this KBE, an increase of 20% from 2020, and the average length of viewing up also up by 135%. We expect national companies to resume and finalize the negotiations they’ve initiated at the upcoming Marche du Film. Key Buyers Event traditionally remains a preview of the top Russian content before the Cannes market."

KEY MARKET DEALS AND AGREEMENTS

Grindstone Entertainment Group, a Lionsgate company, together with CTB Film Company and Luminescence, announced at Key Buyers Event: digital the acquisition of North American rights to the Russian box office hit "Upon the Magic Roads". In addition, Luminescence closed a deal with Discovery Networks on the project for Latin America, and received offers from Taiwan, Japan and Italy.

Central Partnership (part of “Gazprom-Media”) and the Latin American BF Films announced its first joint co-production project – a feature-length psychological horror film "Schizophrenic".

1-2-3 Production premiered the pilot of the 8-episode thriller "Insomnia". International buyers expressed interest in both the ready-made series and the format behind the show, which is available for adaptation.

Art Pictures Distribution presented the second season of the original comedy show "Lanky Girls", which grabbed the attention of the distributors from Spain, Italy, France and Vietnam.

SMF Studio announced three deals with international partners. Jetpack company acquired the rights for international distribution of the project "Claymotions"; comedy series "Pirate School" will be handled by British animation company Bill Melendez Productions (UK) Ltd, and the French company Playbig will distribute the series for preschool audience "Captain Kraken and His Crew" in Southeast and South Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea.

Riki Group announced an agreement with the American VOD service for children Toon Goggles, which acquired the rights to the projects "Kikoriki", "BabyRiki", and educational spin-off "Pincode". Riki Group also signed a deal with Good TV, which will distribute the project "The Fixies" in Taiwan and the Philippines.

Sovtelexport, the official distributor of Russia Television and Radio, announced a sales deal with a French distributor for the series "The Blood Widow". The title will be included in the catalogs of PointdeVue.tv, Nighty.tv, MovieCentral.tv streaming services.

Rock Films premiered the materials on the new ambitious project "Palmyra", a high-budget war drama, entering into final negotiations with Europe and America. Rock Films also presented the feature film "Zemun#, generating a lot of interest from festivals from around the world.

As a result of the market, Odin-Media began to work with Latin American partners, negotiating the sale of 250 hours of series content.