News round-up: ARTE1 & Paramount strike Lat Am factual deals; PBS & NRK open ‘The Letter’; MIP Cancun confirms 2023 dates

The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft

ARTE1 & Paramount strike Lat Am factual deals

Broadcasters and platforms across Latin America have struck deals for factual content with distributor Abacus Media Rights at MIP Cancun.

ARTE1 in Brazil has acquired a line-up including Lennon’s Last Weekend, The Oratorio, Manolo: The Boy Who Made Shoes for Lizards, Agatha Christie: 100 Years of Poirot and Miss Marple, What Was Virginia Woolf Afraid Of?, Margaret Atwood: A Word After A Word After A Word is Power and The Cavern Club: The Beat Goes On.  

Aquarius has picked up The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft and Heroes of the Planet for Brazil; while A&E Networks Latin America has acquired Hitler’s Secret Sex Life and Closing Gambit: 1978 Korchnoi Versus Karpov and The Kremlin for its feed throughout Latin America.

Paramount has bought rights across the region for a number of leading true crime titles including Unmasking A Killer, Inside Evil S1 & S2, Ivan Milat: Buried Secrets, In The Cold Dark Night and Last Man Standing: Suge Knight and the Murders of Biggie & Tupac.  DirectTV has acquired 30 Greatest Moments: Adele and Titans of Tech for Latin America.

Programmes focusing on iconic women, Quant and This is Joan Collins, have been picked up by ¡HOLA! TV for Latin America and Escape From Kabul has been acquired for HBO and HBO Max in the region.

The Letter: A Message For Our Earth

PBS & NRK open ‘The Letter’

PBS in the US and Norwegian broadcaster NRK have both acquired Off The Fence’s documentary The Letter: A Message For Our Earth.

The 1 x 90-minute film will be broadcast across PBS’s 350-plus member channels later this year, with the title, which premiered on YouTube in early October, also heading to NRK.

The doc is inspired by Pope Francis’ encyclical, or letter, in which he calls for the people of the world to take “swift and unified global action” against global warming.

With access to the Pope himself — who is credited with doing more to fight the climate emergency than any other leader on the planet — the 90-minute film tells the stories of people from around the globe whose everyday lives have already been profoundly impacted by global warming.

MIP Cancun confirms 2023 dates

RX France has confirmed that MIP Cancun will return to the Moon Palace Cancun Resort Hotel and Convention Center from 13-16 November 2023 for the 10th anniversary of the market.

The news followed the conclusion of the 9^th iteration at the same venue, which saw 825 distributors, buyers, producers and commissioners from 46 countries attend the markey dedicated to the international distribution and co-production for Latin America and US Hispanic television.

Participation exceeded 2019 pre-pandemic levels and represented an 83% growth in attendance vs. 2021, said RX France.