In the following interview with ttvnews, Joao Worcman, CCO, VP of Acquisitions and Sales at Sofá Digital and Synapse Distribution, shares what content they want to add to their catalog in the international market.

In an industry as dynamic as the entertainment industry, it is essential to stay one step ahead of the latest trends and understand what the international market demands in terms of content.

To this end, ttvnews presents the Buyers: What are buyers looking for? Initiative to learn first-hand about the programming needs of buyers around the world.

This time, we spoke to Joao Worcman, CCO, VP of Acquisitions and Sales at Sofá Digital and Synapse Distribution:

What kind of content, formats, or genres are you looking for at industry events?

When I go to markets, I’m scouting for titles and films for all our windows. We attend as Synapse Distribution, which is basically the distribution arm of Sofá Digital, and we acquire rights across all windows.

We’re looking for movies with strong storytelling. We have a curation process that focuses on the quality of the films, and that’s how we’ve built a lineup packed with high-quality titles.

We look for films from big-name directors, female revenge stories, erotic dramas, and family movies too. Recently, we picked up “Lost in the Mountain” and licensed it to Netflix. The film made it into the platform’s Top 10. Just with the Latin American license, we hit 12 million views in two weeks.

Are there any trends you’re keeping a close eye on in the market?

We’re paying close attention to what we call vertical content — content produced with AI. So we’re definitely watching stories built in that style.

We’re looking at this as a new format and AI as a new tool. That’s something we’re actively exploring at the markets — microdramas, vertical content that’s not necessarily drama. You can make comedy, horror, whatever fits the story.

Where do you see the biggest growth potential for the company today, and how does that reflect in your programming strategy?

We have our distribution arm, Synapse, through which we acquire all rights. We also run our own AVOD, FAST, and SVOD services. Right now, we’ve got eight FAST channels distributed in Brazil and across Latin America.

We’ve just launched a major partnership with Cinepolis — we built Canal Cinepolis for FAST and Cinepolis TV in Mexico. They bring the films, and we handle all the operations.

Over the past two years, we’ve been building this entire network, aiming to grow all our FAST, AVOD, and SVOD operations. So today, our demand for content is huge. We’re pushing growth across all these areas.