ATF Online +: Drama, Animation and Services from Russia to APAC

A big Russian delegation productions, distributors and post-production companies will be taking part of ATF Online+. 19 of them will be placed at the “Made in Moscow” stand, supported by the Moscow Export Center (MEC), subordinated to the Moscow Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovative Development. It is Roskino that organizes the stand. 

Moreover, two presentations of Russian content will be held on December 3 and 4. The showcase dedicated to animation will highlight 9 animation companies, while the second presentation will focus on the film and TV content distributors and service companies. 

Alexey Kalachev, CEO of the MEC, comments: ‘The Moscow Government covers up to 100% of the participation costs for Moscow-based exporters, arranges business meetings, and promotes the joint delegation at the forum. Asian audience is already familiar with content from Moscow, with Russian animation especially popular in the region, but there is still much more to explore, with many possibilities for the exporters. Our goal is to help them boost sales to the Asian countries and build long-term partnerships with local players’.

Evgenia Markova, CEO of Roskino, added: ‘Asian market is one of the top priorities for the national creative industry. Russian content is in demand in the region, not only about animation, but there is also much interest in TV series and feature films across all genres, from sci-fi to comedy. We aim to go beyond sales and acquisitions, and encourage co-production with Asian partners. The “Made in Moscow” program is an excellent platform for this: the participants will present both new ready-mades and projects in development. Local buyers and producers will certainly find something they need for their audience’.
   
Moscow-based companies include Sreda, Revolution Film, Documentary Film Center, ODIN-MEDIA, R Media. Animation will be presented by Soyuzmultfilm, Wizart Animation, brand4rent, Digital Television Russia, Parovoz Studio, Agama Film, Media Foundation, Open Alliance Media and AA Studio. Post-production services will be offered by Flysound, Main Road Post, Flussonic, RuFilms and Sv-kadr. Apart from them, GPM ETV, Sovtelexport/Russia Television and Radio content and Riki Group will present their projects.
 
On the drama side, Sreda will present four new TV series: mystery thriller Kitchenblock, produced for Kinopoisk HD, as well as projects created with MTS Media, the psychological drama Crystal City, thriller Caesar, and black romantic comedy Married Life Scenes.

Caesar 

Documentary Film Center will offer Sorokin Trip about the writer Vladimir Sorokin, Kirill Serebrennikov's film After Summer that depicts the characters’ prototypes of his previous work Summer (Leto), Viktor Tsoi, Mike Naumenko and others. Also, a documentary series on domestic violence Enough!, co-produced with streaming service START and Amurskie Volny studio, and a social video Women in Moscow Metro, created in cooperation with the Moscow Transport Department.

Odin-Media brings new projects: a TV series Newbie about bullying among teenagers and its psychological consequences, a documentary film Invisible Hope focusing on plastic waste recycling, as well as its renowned documentary The Great North Way, an expedition project about the Russian Arctic, a film based on real events Dzhulbars – the Soviet War Dog about the heroic deed of Soviet border guards and service dogs during the WWII, and new episodes of the Combat Approved TV show, which has become a hit in Japan, China, Vietnam and Taiwan. It is also looking for co-production partners for the historical documentary Kremlin: The Era Of Tsars. Odin-Media has already reached preliminary agreements on the sale of several projects in Italy, Spain, Nordic countries, Japan, China, as well as digital platform Huawei, Pluto TV, Roku TV, Tubi TV and Amazon Prime, and plans to negotiate with partners at ATF and sign contracts by the end of the year.
 
Revolution Film will present its full-length projects: the thriller Run by Andrey Zagidullin, the comedy Mistresses by Elena Khazanova, the sci-fi film Petropolis by Valery Fokin and the sports comedy Girls Got Game by Maxim Sveshnikov.
 
R Media will present projects for co-production: film Princess Olga about a young girl from a Slavic tribe who is destined to become the first Russian princess to govern in the Ancient Russia, and Amura about an orphan from Khabarovsk, who managed to get out of a sexual slavery in Japan and to return to Russia to take revenge on her captors.
 
Gazprom-Media Entertainment Television will present new TV series - the mystical adventure thriller Ikotka with horror and folklore elements, which entered the prestigious Fresh TV Fiction international rating at MIPCOM this year, as well as detective series Third Eye Agency and mystical thriller Documentalist Ghost Hunter.

Ikotka 

Among the key projects of Sovtelexport, the sales branch of Russia Television and Radio, are 6 titles from the holding’s updated catalogue: TV series Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes, based on the bestseller by Guzel Yakhina, On the Edge about three young women who end up as hopeless prisoners of the Caliphate, The Blood Widow about the mostnotorious female serial killer in the Russian history, as well as documentaries Who are we? about a young Parisian of Russian origin who goes to the distant Solovetsky Islands tracing his ancestors, Kresty – a film about one of the oldest and largest prisons in Russia, and Great Unknown War that tells how the most destructive war of the 20th century became possible.
 
About animation, key projects from Soyuzmultfilm are the detective animated series The Secrets of Honey Hills, the musical series Rockoons for preschoolers, series Claymotions, produced in rare stop-motion clay technique for the youngest audience, and the comedy series targeted for elder kids from 9 to 12-year-old The Adventures of Peter and Wolf. The company is also looking for co-production partners for the new series Frosh and two re-boots of the well-known animation classics Scat-Cat and Umka.
 
Wizart Animation will present two new animated series in a TV show format. The first show is Backpack, the comedy series Tin`s Firebots about a firefighting team of robots and their adventures. Both projects are open to co-production. Also, the animated series The Snow Queen: Keepers of Wonders, a spin-off to the world-famous franchise, and the feature projects The Snow Queen: Mirrorlands, Sheep and Wolves: Pig Deal and Fantastic Return to Oz.

Tin's Firebots 

Russian licensing agency brand4rent will present the Monsikids animated series about emotional intelligence for preschoolers. The project is already available on Amazon Prime, Kidoodle.TV and Ameba in USA, on Xiaomi and Huawei platforms in China, and will soon appear on the screens of France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Poland, Finland, Croatia and Slovenia – the company has signed an agreement with European distributors Arait Multimedia and Menart. brand4rent is looking for co-production partners for the Flora & Team project, which focuses on ecological and environmental issues.
Parovoz Animation Studio is looking for international co-production partners with four animated projects: brand-new Amazing Cafe about magic adventures of little girl Agatha, comedy Spaceport about distant future, the Tweetville sitcom and musical Boo the Cat and the Good Boy.

Digital Television Russia media holding will hold a pitching of its new project, Puppies & Kittens animated series about the relationship between heroes and the world around them. The key projects of the media holding, produced by Parovoz Animation Studio, are the animated series already well-known to the Asian audience: Be-be-bears, about the adventures of a brown bear named Bucky, a polar bear named Bjorn and their friend named Littlefox, Leo and Tig about the little leopard Leo and tiger cub Tig and their new friend monkey LiLi. The list also includes Fantasy Patrol about the exciting adventures of four young witches and Heroes of Envell about four gamer friends.

The main project of Agama Film is Fairy-Teens comedy, the adventure fantasy series for girls of 6-8 years. Media Foundation will appear on the market with the animated series Sportaniya, which introduces viewers to different sports and the basics of a healthy lifestyle, and the 3D feature film Jumper Treasure Hunting. Open Alliance Media will present four projects from different animation studios: its original animated series JingleKids, which has already found its way to the Asia-Pacific region (previously it was sold to Indonesia, China, Thailand, Taiwan, Pakistan and Mongolia), animated series for preschoolers Tommy, the Little Dragon, as well as two projects open for international co-production: musical My World and Dr. Dinosaurus. The focus of the company this year is South Korea, Vietnam and India - partners of Open Alliance Media are now dubbing Jinglekids into Korean, Vietnamese, Hindi and Bengali.

The main new title from AA Studio is the animated series Mistery of Haunster about overcoming the fears, negative traits and bad habits. AA Studio is interested in involving partners for co-production.

Riki Group will present well-known TV projects – The Fixies, Tina and Tony, BabyRiki and PinCode. The company is already represented in the Asian market and is currently developing a licensing program, working in partnership with Tencent and Alibaba Group. Within ATF Riki Group plans to find new partners and increase international presence in Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. The company will also show projects in development – Question Club, The Amazing Spoilers and Weatherville, the latter awarded at the last year's ATF animation pitching.
 
Last but not least services, through five companies: Flysound, sound production and post-production company for films, television, music, advertising, and promotional productions, operating out of its own studio complex premises. The company offers flexible service for the entire production cycle: sound recording on set, dialogue editing, ADR, foley, the recording and editing of ambiences, sound design, the recording and mixing of music, mixing across all formats including Dolby Atmos. Flysound operates on the basis of the world's first studio complex initially built for Dolby Atmos format specifications, bringing  fundamentally new quality and production capabilities for working with sound in order to deliver any task, regardless of the level of complexity and specificity. The company successfully cooperates with partners from the Western countries and plans to establish contacts with colleagues from Asia and find projects for joint production with international partners in post-production at ATF.

Main Road Post, a visual effects and computer graphics production studio, offers visual effects services for feature films, commercials, games and TV Series. The company’s portfolio encompasses more than 50 movie titles, including the most significant Russian blockbusters, such as Stalingrad, Attraction, Sputnik, as well as the international projects Wanted (USA), The Seventh Son (USA), and Warriors of Future (Hong Kong). Main Road Post is participating at ATF for the first time this year, actively working with the foreign markets and considering Asia to be one of the most important destinations.

Flussonic develops software for streaming video. Its server solutions help business clients store, capture, deliver and transcode video. Customers, such as IBM, Fox, Canal+, Al Jazeera, Lukoil, Gazprom and others, in more than 100 countries use the company’s products for IPTV, OTT, cloud services and protected in-house video surveillance systems. Within the market Flussonic plans to find partners in the regions of Southeast Asia, China and Indonesia, where there is a high demand for video systems.

RuFilms LLC localizes audiovisual content for global markets in more than 50 language pairs. The company works with standard subtitles and subtitles for the deaf and hard hearing (SDH), voice-over and dubbing, audio description and sign language interpretation, scripts and dialogue lists, lyrics and on-screen titles, VR and 3D materials. RuFilms team also provides translation of legal, marketing and advertising materials for exported film products and promotes Russian content on world markets.

And Sv-kadr that localizes content for Russian market, dubbing movies and TV series, voicing documentaries and advertisements, and localizing video games. The company also offers foley recording and editing services.