Olivia Cole, Development Manager at Ruptly Documentary Collection, spoke to ttvnews about the German company’s new division, which has Latin America as one of its main targets.

This Tuesday, German news and video agency, Ruptly, announced the launch of a new division aimed at distributing documentaries around the world.

And to find out more about the new initiative, ttvnews spoke to Olivia Cole, Development Manager at Ruptly Documentary Collection, who shared the division’s plans, priorities and goals.

The new division has launched with 170 documentaries from different parts of the globe, produced in several languages. The idea is to offer them to clients and establish new relationships, with the Latin American market as one of its main targets.

Over the next 12 months, the company intends to expand its catalog, and in the future, produce and coproduce its own titles.

“We have been working on this launch for some time now and we are very excited about it. It’s a very exciting project for us,” Cole said.

“All the documentaries we offer are acquired and we are still looking for new titles to acquire and represent, talking to content producers or anyone who’s currently working on documentaries and is looking for a distributor,” she added.

The plan is to build on the relationships Ruptly has already forged around the world: the agency currently works with over 1500 clients in more than 100 countries.

“In the future we plan to produce or coproduce content, based on what the market demands. We are in a privileged position since we have a lot of data about what the market needs,” she said.

And what type of documentaries do they offer and look for? Basically, all kinds. Meaning, original stories, unexplored themes about people, countries or communities, that appeal to the public.

“We are a global company, so the themes for our documentaries literally come from all over the world. We are looking for new stories that haven’t been explored before,” she said.

“Human stories about countries, communities or places that are not that well known, and this can come from anywhere,” she added.

The 170 titles currently offered by the platform come from countries as diverse as Russia, Syria or the US, to name a few.

“And we are eager to tell stories from places like Africa and the Middle East, regions that are not that well represented in the documentary world,” she said.

In regard to languages, the executive noted the productions don’t necessarily have to be in English or have English dubbing, and that they work with mainly four: English, Spanish, Russian and Arabic. “But we are not limited to those four either,” she said.

In regard to Spanish, Cole explained it’s a language Ruptly has always prioritized and that the documentary division will be no different.

“Over the next 23 months we want to establish conversations with OTT platforms in Spanish. This is a market we are very interested in,” she said.

What Is Ruptly?

Ruptly is a global media agency based in Berlin and known for its news and breaking news videos. The company works with correspondents all over the world, who specialize in capturing the most important events.

These videos are then sold to broadcasters and digital media worldwide. And since they are later archived, they also sell the images to producers around the globe.