Laurene Voilliot: "When channels commission documentaries, they want something local"

Only Distrib is a French documentary expert that is adapting to its clients needs. Taking into account the growth in the documentaries demand, Laurene Voilliot, Head of sales & acquisitions at the company, pointed out that the main challenge is to find a way to produce a documentary which is interesting for our local commissioner, but that will have enough international aspect to it to be interesting for the global market. "When channels commission documentaries, they want something local, so how do you make something local interesting for the global audience, it's kind of a big challenge for us," she asserted.

Regarding Voilliot, another challenge is to find a way to finance the projects, "sometimes budgets are being shrunk, so it's even more difficult to produce good quality documentaries with less financial means," she affirmed.

HIGHLIGHT PROJECTS
Only Distrib is promoting new titles for international market. One of them is "Paris, Capital of Gastronomy: from the Middle Ages to today" (1x90', 1x52'), a history documentary that the company recently added in the catalogue. "The series is about how the French gastronomy was born and how it evolved over the centuries. It's really looking at history through gastronomy," Voilliot detailed.

A second Only Distrib project is the investigative documentary series "Unveiling the Amazon Highlands” (1x52), that follows a 1-year-long scientific expedition in an unexplored area of the Amazonian forest. The goal of this expedition is to discover new species to better understand the biodiversity and protect it better. “This project is really thrilling as the first results show that 12 new species were discovered, mainly lizards and amphibians. We’ll have the definitive results at the end of the year upon delivery of the documentary,” she commented.

The last company outstanding project is "Shapers of Tomorrow," season two. "We will be having 12 episodes which are all focusing on one specific thematics. And in each thematics, we focus on various scientific innovations that are being made in these fields," she said.

Only Distrib goal is always to keep increasing its catalogue in the thematics of science and green and lifestyle. "We have a new documentary in history, so the idea is also to develop the history aspect of our catalogue," Voilliot anticipated.

The Head of sales & acquisitions at Only Distrib also commented the company wants to keep maintaining the relationships they have with buyers and producers. "We've been working more and more with international producers, and it's working well for us, so we are looking to meet new people, new producers," she said. The executive has added the company wants to find production companies that have the same vision as they for their catalogue, "promoting content which is positive, and finding solutions to issues we are facing at the moment, and trying to inspire people," she concluded.