Miracle Screenings. MIPCOM 2007 issue. October 2007. No.19

Since 2005, the (documentary) acquisition departments of five public broadcasters in the Netherlands have been merged into one department. We now take care of all factual acquisition for VPRO, NPS, and VARA. RVU and LLINK. In the past, all these broadcasters had their own buyer and competed with each other on the same programs, which is actually quite strange because in the end, we are all paid by the same public money. So this merge has made things a bit more relaxed and organized and also clear for distributors since they can come to this department for almost every documentary strand on Dutch public TV. Now every broadcaster is specialized in a specific genre or strand. While NPS focuses on cultural documentaries, art series and concerts, VPRO is more into creative documentaries on political and social themes. RVU is interested in factual entertainment series about work and citizenship topics while LLINK specializes in green TV and social issues like globalization, human rights and cultural diversity.

Dutch broadcasters produce many programs themselves, either in house of with Dutch producers. Acquisition for us has always been; those programs that you cannot make yourself, because we don' t have access to the subject (with topics based in far away countries, or the personal relation of a filmmaker with the subject) because of the huge research and production value (especially important for documentaries with political analyses and reconstructions in the tradition of Brian Lapping) or because of the filmmaker that we think is very talented (often festival films).

What programs are you looking for?

For VPRO we acquire en pre-buy international creative documentaries with strong stories about political and social issues. NPS needs accessible well-made cultural documentaries, biographies for example of famous pop bands, architects, writers etc. We also look for lighter programs, factual entertainment series like "Tribe", "Beyond boundaries" and "The museum".

What foreign programs did you buy this year?

Many documentaries for VPRO, "No end in sight", "Devil came on a horseback", "Stranded", "Jesus camp", "Human footprint" and "638 ways to kill Castro". And we also acquired a few series, like "The Museum" (channel 4) for RVU, "Louis Theroux with." (BBC) for VPRO and "Seven Ages of Rock" (BBC) for NPS. And now and then, we acquire pop concerts, like the latest concert from Coldplay.

What national programs did you buy this year?

I only focus on foreign acquisitions; most national programs are co-produced by the broadcasters with Dutch producers or made in-house.

What are your acquisition plans?

We have a weekly strand on Channel 2 called VPRO's import where we show political documentaries. This slot is very late night, so in order to make it a bit easier for our audience at that hour; we are now focusing more on strong narratives. And a bit more diversity in heavy and lighter topics as well. Channel 3 meant for audiences between 29-40 years, will also show more documentaries in the future. For this channel, we will look for accessible and personal stories in the tradition of "Supervise me". And for this channel, we will specifically look for interesting and original factual entertainment.

E-mail: info@miraclescreenings.com