The event will take place on the weekend prior to Mipcom, including a Friday pre-opening enabling an extended programme.
MipJunior today announced full details and schedule for the forthcoming 31st International Kids Screenings & Co-production Market (13-15 Oct) in Cannes, including the introduction of a Friday pre-opening enabling an extended programme of in-depth keynotes, further content discovery and an increased focus on co-production and financing.
The world’s leading entertainment industry event for Kids and Junior content, again held at the JW Marriot Cannes across the weekend preceding Mipcom Cannes (16-19 October), is set to welcome over 1000 delegates from over 60 countries, comprised of the most influential buyers, commissioners, producers, development executives and distributors from the global Kids TV industry.
The addition of a pre-opening afternoon (Friday 13 October) creates MipJunior’s most comprehensive conference programme to date, featuring global executives, new entrants and key players from the Kids content industry and worlds of audience insight, technology as speakers including BBC Studios, Banijay Kids and Family, Blue Ant Media, Crayola Studios, Magic Light Pictures, Moonbug Entertainment, PBS Kids, pocket.watch, Sky, Sinking Ship, Spin Master, Tencent Video and OTTera amongst many others.
Underpinning the programme will be The MipJunior Screenings Library, with the industry’s biggest kids’ content collection available to explore onsite a day earlier this year as part of the new Friday pre-opening.
“The pace of transformation within the Kids sector is like no other,” said Lucy Smith Director of MipJunior and Mipcom Cannes. “…and we have curated a programme to not only help navigate this but to realise all opportunities it presents. Be it from hearing directly from storytellers, strategists and specialists that inspire, discovering that key show, or finding and forging those critical, meaningful creative and commercial partnerships, MipJunior is again set up to boost your business and celebrate all that is Kids.”
Programme highlights include:
– The MipJunior Keynote will be delivered this year by Ramsey Naito, President of Paramount Animation/Nickelodeon Animation on the first full day of the market (Saturday 14 October) at 12.00 – 12.45 in the Grand Theatre. Ramsey, who has some of the animated world’s biggest global franchises (including SpongeBob SquarePants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Avatar, PAW Patrol and Dora the Explorer) under her helm and has overseen a renaissance of animation content and production since joining Nickelodeon, will share insights into sustaining franchises for kids of all ages, authentic and diverse storytelling, advances in technology and strategies to reach kids globally across digital screens and platforms. Paramount will also present The MipJunior Opening Night Party later that evening from 18.00 at Cannes’ iconic Hotel Majestic.
– The MipJunior World Premiere Screening will be the latest instalment of original ‘edutainment’ series ‘Once Upon a Time…The Objects’ co-produced by Procidis & Samka Productions in association with France Télévisions. Premiering on Saturday (14 October) at 17.30, the 8th series of the acclaimed saga, set to air in 2024, sees hero Maestro returning to give kids the opportunity to discover different fields of knowledge (History, Geography, Physics, Natural Sciences, Philosophy) through an everyday object in each episode (from drones to pants and lip balm). Now under the Hello Maestro brand, the 78 x 7’ collection marks the latest outing for the enduring, popular and well-travelled ‘Once Upon a Time’ franchise, which since premiering in France in 1978 has been translated into over 80 languages.
– The programme’s opening keynote discussion on Friday will set the scene for the weekend by focusing on universal challenges and potential opportunities throughout the sector with Wildbrain (Deirdre Brennan), Blue Spirit Studio (Olivier Lelardoux), PBS Kids (Sarah Dewitt) and Keith Chapman.
– Exclusive future-focused presentations will feature throughout the MipJunior programme, with analyses of audience behaviours and issues shaping the industry given by some of the sector’s leading insight specialists including The Insights Family (Nick Richardson and Rachel Bardill), Ampere Analysis (Cyrine Amor) and Glance (Candice Alessandra).
– Further sessions exploring innovative production and distribution models include a deep dive into Crayola Studios’ move into Kids content (with Executive Vice President, Victoria Lozano); the successful managing of Kids IP across multiple platforms with Banijay Kids & Family (Delphine Dumont), Spin Master (Jeremy Tucker) and Moonbug Entertainment (Andy Yeatman); the next phase of FAST analysed by Bolt+ (Harry Teper), pocket.watch (Chris M. Williams), Animaj (Gregory Dray), and OTTera (Stephen L.Hodge); and the ethical considerations and transformative role AI can play in production with demonstrations from practitioners from around the globe including the Ukraine’s Wantent (Lesha Shaldenko), New Zealand’s Motion Tech Lab (Greg Harman) and the UK’s Particle 6 Productions (Eline Van Der Velden).
– The MipJunior Pitch, the unrivalled opportunity for Kids and Tween-targeted projects (6-12) to reach influential global, multi-platform commissioners, this year sees finalists from Brazil, Canada, France, Ireland and the UK pitching live on stage to representatives from BBC Studios (Edward Barnieh), Alibaba-Youku (Yuanchang Sun), Disney Branded Television (Rick Clodfelter) and Super RTL (Kerstin Viehbach).
– As with Mipcom Cannes, the MipJunior programme will showcase best practice in progressing Diversity and Inclusion through authentic content, with case studies that have connected with younger audiences being presented by Sky (Lucy Murphy), multi-platform manga brand Mayamada (Nigel Tuwamasi) and the MIP SDG Award-winning Junk Kouture (Katie Brill).
– Co-Production and Financing has an increased focus at this year’s MipJunior through sessions with key players including 9 Story (Alix Wiseman), BBC Studios (Patricia Hidalgo), Sinking Ship (Carla De Jong), Blue Ant Media (AJ Trauth) and PBS Kids (Adriano Schmid), and the introduction of structured hour-long MipJunior Speed Matchmaking programme across Saturday and Sunday mornings acting as a further catalyst for creative and commercial deal-making.
