June/July 2023 L.A. Screenings Review (Continued From Page 18) dio lot, as well as a Sony party at the Sony studio. On Monday, MGM and Warner Bros. Discovery separately invited buyers for drinks. To recap the indies event, the first day, Wednesday, started slow, but things picked up on Thursday, and became even busier on Friday, with some aggravation caused by the slow hotel elevators (especially annoying as participants weren’t able to use the stairs since the fire doors did not allow for re-entry). Thursday and Friday were also when the Content LA conference took place at the Century Plaza. The event attracted many production and development executives. Experts on the podium decried a drastic drop in U.S. drama production, although in March the film agency for the city of Los Angeles, Film LA, reported a shortage of sound stages due to increased production. Also on Thursday, on the floor above Content LA, another conference, called Focus on Latin America, took place. In terms of recreational activities, there were cocktails hosted by Parrot Analytics at a nearby mall, and Content LA’s own opening day cocktail party at the Century Plaza, in addition to the aforementioned Telefilms reception. This year the L.A. Screenings also saw the return of the Italian distributors, with Publispei exhibiting with a table, while South Africa made a first appearance as a participant (without exhibiting) with MultiChoice Studios in attendance. Meanwhile, the Spaniards were present as exhibitors with several companies, including public broadcaster RTVE. The six-day Hollywood studios event included one day for Fox, two days for Warner Bros. Discovery, and four overlapping days for Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount, and Sony, with Disney (whose Disney LatAm team is pictured at left) splitting the buyers between their lot in Burbank and El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, and Sony Pictures sounding the closing bell for the 2023 L.A. Screenings on May 25. These shorter-than-usual screening windows for each studio meant some overlapping events, so buyers from the same companies at times had to split venues. As usual, the Canadian buyers landed in Los Angeles earlier than other groups, since their Upfront presentations to advertisers were staged quickly on June 7 (Corus/Global), and June 8 (Bell Media/CTV). In terms of new content, these Screenings saw the adaptation of shows from countries other than the traditional U.K. FOX-TV network had Doc, adapted from the Italian medical drama (and distributed by Sony Pictures TV), ABCTV had High Potential, based on the French series Haut Potentiel (distributed by Disney), Paramount+ had The Turkish Detective (filmed in Istanbul and distributed by Paramount Global), and since a British adaptation can’t be missed, Amazon proposed Dinner With The Parents (distributed by Paramount Global), a comedy based on the Channel 4 series Friday Night Dinner. The major U.S. studios will take the new series on the road starting in June with presentations in Amsterdam, Budapest, London, Madrid, Munich, Rome, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires, which is another reason for the reduced number of buyers at this year’s Screenings. 20 VideoAge A Bridge between Budapest and Toledo One Issue Covers It All!
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