Intl. TV Newswire: Spring Markets Feel Le Crunch, Warner Bros. in Spain

In this week’s International TV Newswire: spring festivals and markets feel Le Crunch, Warner Bros. steps up Spanish scripted, Nordisk Film and Fantefilm join forces, “All Star Driving School” steers into Mexico.

June Builds as a Virtual Market Smackdown

Le Crunch used to refer to the France-England rugby match. Now, it pretty much sums up Europe’s virtual marketplace line-up in June. Already the latter half of Annecy (June 15-30), the biggest animation festival in the world, overlaps with the virtual edition of the Cannes Film Market (June 22-26), the biggest film market in the world. Sunny Side of the Doc, one of Europe’s premiere doc events, runs online June 22-25. Now Conecta Fiction, the buzzing boutique Europe-Latin American drama series forum held in Pamplona, Spain, has announced a “strong” line-up of virtual presentations over the week of June 15. The new crunch is of course a consequence of earlier event cancellations and the length to which it is advisable to play out screening or presentations online, as Series Mania and MipTV Online Plus discovered. Film and TV used to operate in pretty much distinct silos. No more. As Europe film-TV industry suffers a shakeout which is seeing fortified independent giants seeking to produce and sell across a wide gamut of genres and program types, just how much attention individual events will command is anybody’s guess. Since events are ever more marketing platforms, with actual deals closed all year round, that’s no mean question.

Gonzalez, Nieto to Fire Up New Scripted at Warner Bros. ITVP in Spain

Marking the latest move in the dramatic build of Spanish-language drama series production, Warner Bros. ITVP España has launched a new scripted department, and appointed screenwriter Carolina Gonzalez, former head of development at Argentina’s Underground,  as fiction content director, and Clara Nieto, an Apache Films executive producer, as business director. Initiating activity, WB ITVP España has created and is now producing “En casa” for HBO España. Also developing a series with Warner Bros, ITVN affiliates in Germany and the U.K., the division will produce for third party broadcasters and platforms and HBO Max, create original production, adapt Warner Bros. catalog titles and third-party scripted projects and pursue co-production deals, such as those in place with Argentina’s Pol-ka and Kapow.