The international online content market Key Buyers Event: digital, organized by ROSKINO with the support of The Ministry of Culture, the Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovative Development of the City of Moscow and the Agency for Creative Industries, which will be held on June 8–10, 2021 has now been extended by three days for screenings and online negotiations to accommodate the surge of content available from 119 Russian companies.

Over 500 international executives from 66 countries have already confirmed their attendance, the highest numbers of attendees including both buyers and producers are coming from Italy, France, Germany, Turkey, USA, Spain, UK, India, South Korea, Poland.

The forum will feature more than 100 feature films, 90 series, and 70 animation projects, over 50 documentaries, as well as 75 projects for co-production. The new content slate is mainly produced by Moscow-based companies, but Key Buyers Event traditionally brings regional players as well from biggest Russian cities – Saint Petersburg, Ekaterinburg, Khabarovsk and others.

This year new arthouse films in development, eligible for global festivals, will be presented to international programmers and independent cinema distributors. For the first time, Key Buyers Event will also gather 11 major Russian VOD platforms – the market will host an exclusive overview of the national VOD services.

“From the local event we launched in 2019, Key Buyers Event has transformed into the large-scale national market, a must-attend event for international players, interested in globally compelling content and new opportunities coming from Russia. Compared to 2020, with over 300 projects and 34 premieres presented last year, the upcoming edition has shown exponential growth to 400 titles and 50 premieres, but not only in quantity. We constantly adapt to the national industry needs and follow key trends of the global market, so we have expanded the business program and launched new sections. The forum is now a unique business platform that provides a transparent overview of the whole market, including a showcase of the content available, the opportunities for co-production and co-funding, local players across the industry – from top distributors to post-production services, as well as talents,” explained Evgenia Markova, general director of ROSKINO.

This year Key Buyers Event expands the co-production section, held in partnership with When East Meets West (WEMW) international forum. The section will host 75 Russian IPs looking for international partners, as well as pitching selections.
The co-production pitching will be held in a bilateral format for the first time in the history of Key Buyers Event. Russian producers will pitch 17 selected projects to international producers, while 9 global finalists (selected out of more than 50 applications) will present their IPs to the potential Russian partners.

The selections will be announced in the coming weeks.