The 62nd Monte-Carlo Television Festival wrapped in Monaco on Tuesday night (June 20) having found creative ways to manoeuvre around the limits placed on visiting US talent by the ongoing Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike.
The festival managed to wrangle international stars and US studio execs to the event and sidestepped any controversy relating to project promotion. WGA members are prohibited from making promotional appearances during the strike but can hold press conferences in their capacity as directors or producers.
Novelist and showrunner Harlan Coben, in town with the festival’s opening series Shelter for Prime Video, took to the stage to say: “I am supporting the Writers Guild of America.. so I am not going to participate in any of the question and answers.”
Instead, the series’ cast led the session.
Homeland co-creator Howard Gordon, whose credits also include 24, and Accused, also made a passing reference to the strike at the closing night ceremony as he accepted the festival’s Honorary Golden Nymph award. “Part of the reason the Writers Guild is striking right now is the distributive and sometime dehumanising implications of technology,” he said. He referred to ”reductive terms” such as “‘content’ and ‘binge’” to describe the creative process. He added: “I’ve always taken TV very seriously.”
Hulu’s Everyone is Doing Great creators Stephen Colletti and James Lafferty also attended the festival. Both are writers on the series, but neither are members of the WGA and were present in the capacity of producers and stars, associated only with SAG. “What’s going on right now really matters,” said Lafferty. ”You think about it a lot when you have something going out to market, when there’s a strike going on. But at the end of the day, the show is done and dusted. We’ve shot it, we’re editing it. We obviously have the responsibility to ourselves and our investors to get it out there. At the same time, we have the responsibility to stand by our guilds.”
“We were afraid the US writers’ strikes would affect the festival, but there really wasn’t much of an impact, no swarms of talent cancelling last-minute or coming and refusing to promote their projects as we feared,” the festival’s executive director Cécile Menoni told Screen. “Everything ran smoothly.”
One notable absentee was WGA member Ron Leshem, the co-creator of Israeli espionage thriller Trust No One, which screened at the festival. It was left to his co-creators and non-WGA members Amit Cohen and Daniel Amsel to fly the flag for the series in Monte-Carlo.
Winners
Germany-Norway-Czech Republic crime thriller The Seed was awarded the festival’s Golden Nymph prize for best creation and won the audience award. The series follows two detectives searching for a missing journalist in Norway’s Arctic region. Leonine Studios has international rights.
Ten Pound Poms, produced by Sony Pictures Television-backed Eleven for BBC One and Australia’s Stan, won both best series and best actor for Warren Brown.
Marie Reuther was named best actress for her role in Danish series Chorus Girls from Apple Tree Productions.
Make It Happen Studio and Shoot Again Productions in partnership with TF1 France
French TV film The Fragile Colossus, produced by Make It Happen Studio and Shoot Again Productions in partnership with TF1 France, won both the best film and special jury prize for star Timi -Joy Marbot. Sold by Newen internationally, The Fragle Colussus features Eric Cantona as a former rugby player grappling with the demons of his childhood sexual abuse.
Royal touch
Despite the ubiquity of other France-based television-focused festivals led by March’s Series Mania (Lille), April’s Canneseries (Cannes) and September’s La Rochelle Fiction Festival, the timing makes Monte-Carlo a feasible stopover for the international industry. The festival aims to give global TV content the royal treatment by blending audience-focused screenings, press interviews and fan meetings for talent, with a business angle to provide visiting studios and sales agents with a one-stop shop to promote their content. The Monte-Carlo glamour factor is also a boost with the seaside festival presided by Prince Albert II.
In addition to a strong showing from Prime Video, which also brought Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power for cast events, companies with titles in official selection or visiting talent included All3Media-owned Raw, France Televisions, Netflix, CBS International, NHK, Studiocanal, Newen Connect, Sony Pictures Entertainment, EOne/ABC Studios and NBCU with Wolf Entertainment shows.
The festival has been ramping up its efforts in recent years to bolster the business side of the event complete. Conference speakers included Lisa Kramer, president of international TV licensing at Paramount Global Content Distribution and Camille Rydbacken, SVP of scripted content at Viaplay and more.
Festival director Laurence Puons says the festival has a quality over quantity approach: “We don’t have 500 or 600 industry executives flying in – we have 50 or 60. We give them an intimate space to meet each other and do business. We can’t position ourselves as a market, especially so soon after MIPTV and just after the Festival de Cannes. Industry execs don’t come to sell content, but it is a place where international producers and directors can mingle with talent and spark projects.”
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