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The Latin American
telenovela has fallen into a dreamworld
Lebanese distributor Dany Ibrahim, without mincing his words, states
that the Arab audience "is tired of always watching the
same." And he poses two conditions in order to conquer it
again: "less fantasy, more reality and more quality."
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A great buyer and distributor, expert in the
telenovela business and a strong critic, Dany Ibrahim, Head
of the Lebanese distribution company MEDIA VISION FILMS,
assures that the Arab audience, which has warmly and
positively welcomed Latin American telenovelas for years,
currently turns its back on them. "In the Middle East,
programmers are rejecting them because audiences no longer
follows them as they used to, since they are the same stories
and so are their look or aesthetic aspects," he shoots.
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"Less
fantasy, more reality told in an entertaining way and
more quality." - Dany Ibrahim.
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Ibrahim, who constantly travels to Europe looking for new
formats to place in the Arab TV market, states that "people
are tired of always watching the same. We want the scripts to
change, so that they are more heart-breaking, with more
current topics, closer to reality and people's everyday life."
The repetition of models saturated the market, he explains,
remembering other times when "telenovelas came out and
everyone asked for them. Nowadays the market is increasingly
slower," he assures. However, he keeps a door open:
"When they bring new ideas, they will be popular again
and the market will be what it used to be."
An example he considers worth mentioning out of this monotonous
outlook is the Colombian telenovela Sin tetas no hay paraíso
because it covers current affairs, it is very well produced and has
a very fresh look," the Lebanese businessman says
enthusiastically. That's what Ibrahim aims at for his customers.
After a scathing diagnosis, the distributor has three conditions
that, according to him, will suit the recovery of devalued Latin
American telenovelas in this market: "Less fantasy, more
reality told in an entertaining way and more quality," he
shoots as a maxim.
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"Sin
tetas no hay paraíso covers current affairs, it is
very well produced and has a very fresh look," says
enthusiastically the Lebanese businessman, who adds that
he found very little interesting content in the last
MIPTV in Cannes. |
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"Because
of negative tensions between the female star and the male
costar, we had to promise the actress to think about a
different ending with another man - she wouldn't have signed
the contract otherwise. So, we created a new love interest
for Lisa (our Betty, la fea ) and the new man was, by
the way, very well accepted by the audience. On the other
hand, our male star wanted to have a two-month break,
otherwise he wouldn't have signed the contract, so we had to
create a kidnapping story to explain why the main male
character wasn't on the screen for 8 weeks. These
difficulties even increased the audience interest." |
Peter Schlesserman, series and telenovela writer and
scriptwriter for German production company Grundy UFA. He developed
the creative processes of successful products like the adaptation of
Betty, la fea.
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