Film.UA Group - One of The Largest Media Groups in the Ukraine

For the first time, the Ukrainian media market now has a group of companies that unite under one brand, a number of businesses operating in all main areas of Film and Television production and distribution.

A Ukrainian production company, Film.UA, that has already established itself as one of the leading production companies in the Ukraine, has announced its restructuring and forming of a single and complex media group. Starting March 2007, and under the Film.UA Group umbrella brand, a number of daughter companies have united their activities.

Film.UA Production - a production company (one of the market leaders), producing TV product for leading broadcasters from the Ukraine, Russia and other CIS countries.

Over the period of 2006, the company has produced 12 TV movies and has launched a production of a long running telenovelas planned for broadcast on the 1+1 Channel in the Ukraine, and The 5th Channel in Russia. At the moment, the Film.UA production library is comprised of hundreds of hours of programming. The demand for its product is proven by the fact that the TV rights have already been sold to leading Ukrainian and Russian broadcasters. Some of the movies have already topped TV ratings ("Homeless", "Women's Tears", "Getting Back Viera", etc). Some of the TV movies where co-produced with various Russian partners.

For 2007, there are around 25-30 TV movies in the pipeline, 20-30 hours of series, 2-3 telenovelas, and a few theatrical projects.

Film.UA Distribution - a distribution company that handles all TV rights and theatrical product. Film UA Distribution was created on the basis of the leading national distributor IntWest Distribution. The library of the company has a significant volume of local and foreign product: starting for the extremely successful first Ukrainian telenovelas "Love Cure", musicals, Oxana Bairak's movies, and ending with such international hits as "Million Dollar Baby", "Memoirs of a Geisha", "Aviator", etc. The company plans to strengthen its positions on the TV markets of the CIS countries, and to establish cooperation with Russian speaking broadcasters all over the world. Film.UA Distribution also plans to develop such areas of distribution as Pay TV, Home Video, Theatrical and New Media.

Film.UA Studio - a full cycle production studio within the city of Kiev that has its own production facilities, a number of sound stages, and the whole infrastructure needed for servicing the production process. The construction of the studio is in its final stages, and is being done according to the standards of the leading production studios of the world. The Studio will be rendering its services to local producers, as well as to international production companies. At the moment, 2 of the sound stages are already functioning. The first sound stage (900 м2) was launched a few months ago with a significant telenovelas project for 1+1 Channel (Ukraine) and The 5th Channel (Russia). The second sound stage has an area of 200 м2 and 5,2 м of height. It's already being exploited for the filming of advertising commercials. By the end of the year, from 5 to 6 additional sound stages should be complete. The grounds of the studio also have an office building with a total area of office space of 7000 м2, where a number of cinematic companies are renting offices.

A team of professionals well known on the local and international media markets manages Film.UA Group. Victor Mirsky (previously the head of the acquisition department of Inter TV channel from 2001 - 2005, and a partner of the leading law firm Konnov&Sozanovsky) was appointed a CEO of the entire Group. Film UA Distribution is headed by Igor Storchak (the former Programming Director of New Channel, who worked at the channel for over 6 years).

Film.UA Group has its own representative offices abroad: in Russia it's represented by the company Film.RU (Moscow), and on the International market the Group's interests are represented by WTW Films LTD (London).

The rapid growth of the TV market demands a professional approach to the process of business planning and the analysis of potential activities on the market. That is the reason why Film.UA Group has become a strategic partner of the media consulting company «Media Resources Management» (MRM). Being the only and unique company in the Ukraine that offers consulting services in the media arena, MRM produces a number of informational and analytical products for professional players in the media market. Besides, MRM is an exclusive representative of French researching company MediaMetrie on the territory of the Ukraine; it also has a contract for the official use of TV ratings data with the Ukrainian measurer GFK Ukraine, and is also an official informational partner of Association of Producers of Ukraine.

Long-term goals that are set for MRM by Film UA Group include the creation of a business strategy of the Group's development on the Ukrainian media market. According to MRM's CEO Iryna Kostyuk, the current trend of TV product's localizations offers a basis for making some quite bold forecasts for the development of such a group as Film UA. «At the moment Film.UA Group is the only Ukrainian project that offers out of one single resource everything that is needed for each level of a TV product implementation process - starting from commissioning of the production and ending with the sale of all rights».

Having such resources, Film.UA Group can offer its clients complex full cycle services as well as each of the services separately: facility rentals, producing, organization of production services, rights distribution, etc. The goal of the Group is to service the whole market.