Last week the major KIEV MEDIA WEEK media forum took place, wherein FILM.UA Group wat actively participating.
At the opening conference of the sixth international forum its participants, among them Vladimir Zelensky, the art director of Studio Kvartal 95, CEO of StarLightMedia Group Vladimir Borodyansky, marketing director of Megogo Ivan Shestakov, CEO of Ukrainian Film Association Victoria Yarmoshchuk, deputy director of the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine Uliana Feshchuk, and co-founder FILM.UA Group Sergey Sozanovsky, shared their major achievements for the last year, and outlined major problems which the people at the industry are now facing most of all.
Sergey Sozanovsky highlighted the importance of media business 360° turnaround. “If a year ago we started slowly taking up this thing about, now a series of events happen where you suddenly realize that without turning media 360° around you might as well lose your job whatsoever in the future,” – he said.
At the KIEV CoProduction Meetings pitching conference, FILM.UA Group’s general producer Victor Mirsky said that no forein crews will come to film in Ukraine until the implementation of the cashback system for producers wherein part of production expenses is given back to producers who spent them on the territory of Ukraine.
The draft law containing norms of state support of cinema and television, including cashback of a part of the qualified expenses, was explained at the Kinobusiness international conference by Yevgenia Derbal, the legal adviser of FILM.UA Group. Only two days after, the long-discussed and long-awaited law was finally adopted. Yevgenia Derbal explained it in details at #Cinecountry initiative’s participant meeting, pointing out that it will entail changes not only in the film production industry, but also in many other spheres. Thereafter, they discussed prospects of the industry and shared information about new projects they are currently working on. The event was opened by FILM.UA Group which is currently at work on some 30 projects, and they were followed by representatives of Studio Kvartal 95, StarLightMedia Holding, Inter Channel, Star Media Film Company, and Media Group Ukraine.
In his turn, Charlie Woebcken, CEO of Studio Babelsberg, one of the major and most famous German film studios, said that Ukraine is a promising location for foreign productions.
Within the same pitching, a presentation of 10 previously selected projects took place, and the winner was the project of an 8-episode historical mystical detective series, presented by Olesia Lukyanenko and Elena Malkova from FILM.UA Group. The prize was provided by Ukraine Channel, the forum’s partner, and it turned out to be both media support and a ticket to Paris to participate in the Series Mania international festival taking place April 2017, free accommodation included.
Polina Tolmacheva, marketing and PR director of FILM.UA Group, became one of the keynote speakers at the practical conference called “Storytelling and branded content: current world trends in advertising and Ukrainian reality”. On “The Stronghold”, the first Ukrainian superhero fantasy movie, Polina demonstrated how product placement can be used for attracting viewers and project promotion purposes, and pointed out that both for the advertiser and for the producers of the project it is vitally important to “find each other” as early as on the stage of screenwriting.
Apart from taking part in keynote events of the media forum, Sergey Sozanovsky and Victor Shkrobot, paid channel and digital content control and coordination director of FILM.UA, acted as moderators for a series of events within the “Television as business” conference, and Polina Tolmacheva in her turn, acted moderator of the “Kinobusiness” conference.
An exclusive report called "Technologies and prospects of virtual reality", was presented by Tom Burton, the leading innovation expert from the department of digital storytelling of BBC Studios
He noticed that nowadays the so-called AR и VR (augmented reality and virtual reality) tend to be merging, he spoke about their major capabilities for the time being, as well as about VR content variety. Tom Burton was also an expert of a FILM.UA Faculty’s master class, where, in his turn, Yuri Prylipko presented VR products created by the Postmodern company.
Apart from the official part, thanks to Samsung, the event’s partner, the guests of the media forum had an opportunity to plunge into the world of virtual reality and find themselves in the heart of making Ukraine’s first superhero fantasy movie, “The Stronghold”.
In parallel with various events and conferences, the KIEV MEDIA WEEK forum also hosted an international UKRAINIAN CONTENT MARKET for the professionals of the industry. For two days Hyatt Regency Kiev served meeting place of sellers and buyers of audiovisual content from CIS, Baltics, Central and Eastern Europe, and other regions of the world. Igor Storchak, CEO at FILM.UA Distribution, said that the quality of the new FILM.UA projects was distinguished at international markets such as European Film Market in Berlin, and Marché u Film in Cannes. “Right now FILM.UAis working on more than 30 projects capable of catering the tastes of almost any buyer,” – Storchak said. – The distributable movie “The Stronghold” and the distributable animation “The Stolen Princess” are our headliners. We’ve also got TV series – this August we started filming “The Sniffer” Season 3 and two seasons of “Doctor on Call” at the same time. Both “Contact” and “Line of Light” have great international potential. Recently we have finished making “Stap Dan”, our adaptation of New Zealand’s format, in a very little while “Red Bracelets”, a touching melodrama based on a Catalan format will be released for television. Moreover, for the last two years, FILM.UA Group has produced more than 100 hours of digital content. These were lifestyle blogs, culinary videos, advertisements, educational content, virtual reality projects.”
