DISCOP Istanbul 2014, Eurasia’s television and online content industries gathering, kicked off in Istanbul at the Lutfi Kirdar Convention and Exhibition Center with a conference called ‘Dramas with Passports.’
Speaking at the conference, Izzet Pinto, CEO of Global Agency, a film distributor company, from Turkey said he had not expected this much success from a Turkish TV series abroad, adding that they first started to sell them to Bulgaria and then spread further afield.
“The most successful Turkish TV series so far is Magnificent Century. It has entered countries we didn’t expect such as Italy, China, Pakistan and Lithuania." he said.
“Having Turkish TV series helps promote tourism because it brings in a lot of tourists. In the last five years we have seen an incredible rise in the number of tourists coming to Turkey from the Middle East and many other countries. It is the soft power of Turkey,” Pinto said.
He also broke the news that Turkish TV series’ will be going to Chile and said it was a dream of his company to reach that far.
Turkey is still quite young in the film sector, Zeynep Santiroglu Sutherland, a film producer from Azceltic Films said, adding that in the last four years they had not only filmed in Turkey for Turkey, but for many countries as well, including Italy, France, England, Greece.
“Turkey is a great option as a film-making place. We have still long way to go but we are hopeful in this sense,” she said.
Donna Wiffern, EVP Scripted Content Middle East of Fremantle Media Company and a panelist from Moldova, said Fremantle had been successful in taking different film formats and dispersing them to variety of areas.
“We have a global perspective to drama formats. We pay attention to global content of the drama kind, such as revenge, love, hate. Turkish TV series are very successful in bringing these feelings together. They also have so many iconic characters,” she continued.
Launched in 2010, DISCOP Istanbul is an annual, three day, business to business event with over 1,000 delegates from over 90 countries attending this year. This year's guest country is India.
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