Marché launches Cross Media Corner

In a sign of the times Cannes’ Marché du Film is launching a Cross Media Corner aimed at giving cinema professionals an overview of some of the most exciting projects and developments in the transmedia sector.

“The idea is to give producers a snapshot of what’s going on in the cross media world. People immersed in the sector will probably know the projects being showcased but many cinema professionals have no knowledge of this area,” explains market director Jérôme Paillard.

“Documentary and television producers have been relatively quick to embrace multi-platform formats… but the uptake has been slower in the cinema world and although we realise cross media might not be relevant for every film we think it is an area worth exploring nonetheless.”

A number of projects will be showcased as installations, including Jan Kounen’s upcoming animation Windwalkers.

Kounen’s first feature-length picture since the 2009 Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, the film is an adaptation of a fantasy novel by Alain Damasio and will be accompanied by a prequel video game and a comic book series.

Visitors will also be able to try out Canadian Alex Jansen’s controversial, ethical video game Pipe Trouble, which was devised to accompany the theatrical documentary Trouble in the Peace about the environmental damage wreaked by oil pipelines. 

AlsoFrom the documentary world, Miquel Dewever-Plana and Isabelle Fougere’s award-winning web documentary Alma, A Tale of Violence will also on be display.

Footage from Buenaventura Mon Amour, a multi-platform work focusing on new talent in the hip-hop scene across Latin America, created by Steven Grisales and Jose Luis Rugeles of Rhayuela Cine will also screen on a loop in the corner.

A series of roundtables will kick off on Thursday with a presentation by Kounen, Damasio andWindwalkers producers Hervé Trouillet, Nicholas Romain and Lubna Cecillon of Forge Animation and Cedric Biscay of Shibuya Production for a discussion on how they brought the various elements of the project together on a limited budget.                

Philippe Reyneart, CEO of Wallonia’s promotional cinema body Wallimage, will talk about the organisation’s €800,000 fund for cross media projects, launched last year, aimed at promoting cinema and unveil a study on its impact to date.

“We’ve have supported some 15 projects aimed at digitally promoting films we’re supporting and we thought it would be interesting to look at their impact,” reveals Reyneart.

A recent campaign for Michel Gondry’s Mood Indigo is used as case study. Originally developed to promote the film in Belgium, it was later picked up by StudioCanal for use in France too.

In other roundtables, Femke Wolting, managing director of innovative Amsterdam-based transmedia company Submarine will present the first-ever second screen cinema App and web game, created as extensions to the Bellicher: Cell movie and spin-off television series.

Also from the Netherlands, Caspar Sonnen, curator of the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam’s innovative DocLab section, will present Moments of Innovation, an overview of technological developments that have revolutionised storytelling in cinema and beyond.