Creative Director of Basement Animation, Mbuotidem ‘MB’ Johnson, recently returned from MIPJunior, the world’s leading kids entertainment industry event which took place in Cannes, France.
MIPJunior gathers the most influential buyers, producers, development executives and distributors from the global kids TV industry targeted on networking, pitching and also content discovery. It is a perfect destination for producers to stand out about their products and for buyers to discover the latest kids programs.
MB was invited to be a panelist on the ‘Focusing on African Producers’ session. The aim of the session was to showcase the potential of Africa’s Animation industry and to give African producers an opportunity to pitch ideas for new shows.
Image credit // MIPJunior 2019
It was shocking to learn that some conference delegates were not aware that the African animation industry is beginning to experience some growth and according to them, ‘aside from South Africa nothing is going on in Africa’. Many were even surprised to learn that Africans create animated content and were curious to hear what MB had to say and offer.
This was a fantastic opportunity to showcase the amount of talent and creativity coming out of Africa to everyone in attendance. It didn’t just end with sharing our own views, people also got to learn new things too.
In that sense, the panel was an eye opener for all concerned; and even though Africa has a lot of potential, we still have a lot of work to do if we intend to be influential players on the international stage.
Sharing his thoughts on the difference between MIPJunior and other markets he has attended, MB realized that MIPJunior is really what a market should be. MIPJunior essentially deals with the buying and selling finished projects rather than the potential of projects. Although there are opportunities to pitch ideas and seek co-production opportunities as well as discovering projects to invest in, it still is more geared towards buying and selling completed content.
