CEETV and Kyiv Media Week will be hosting the panel CEE Drama Hits. Unveiling Success Recipes on Tuesday, September 17.

Successful recipes are usually made in the kitchen, more often than not by a process of trial and error. The fiction market in Central and Eastern Europe seems to have found the right recipe to produce series that are not only successful in their respective local or regional markets (markets with historic ties like former Czechoslovakia, former Yugoslavia, former USSR countries) but also internationally.

And this goes not only for dramas which will be the focus of this panel discussion, but also for comedies. A good example for a successful series from the region that illustrates well the title of the discussion is Russian series KITCHEN. The producers and the creative team behind the project which launched back in 2012 have obviously cooked up a very successful recipe, since the series has been sold to numerous territories not only as a ready-made series but has also been adapted as a format.

But putting the focus on drama – there is one series that took the TV (and not only) world by storm this year – Chernobyl. And even though it is an international HBO and Sky production, with an international crew and cast, most of the filming of Chernobyl took place in Lithuania. And the fact that this project with 19 Emmy nominations and the highest score ever on IMDB for a series presents a very CEE-focused story. Well, viewers would now definitely take a much closer look at what CEE has to offer in terms of drama.

So, what are the major changes in the CEE drama market in the past few years? What are the main ingredients for a local drama to become an international hit? What are the most-successful series in the panelists’ catalogues and why?

The panel will be moderated by CEETV’s Stanislav Kimchev and will feature Mirela Nastase, Director ZDFE.drama at ZDF Enterprises, Emanuele Galloni, CEO Videoplugger, and Leonid Godik, International Sales and Acquisitions at Beta Film.