Overheard at Cannes: the US awards mainstay will go global with a partnership to showcase new emerging markets' screen talent for the first time.
The Golden Globes, the fixture of the Hollywood awards calendar owned by Dick Clark Productions, is planning a maiden expansion westward from Los Angeles – almost halfway around the world, in fact – for its first-ever franchise agreement. The only such project for any major American awards circuit property, Vivid Strategies, a consultant partner, confirms the showcase will honour the diversity of film and television produced in the Caucasus and Central Asia later this year.
Still in the planning, the programme is set for this fall and has engaged Vivid and production house Foresee Films, which have regional execution expertise. Countries highlighted will include Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan from the Caucasus, and Central Asia's Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
Evolving Mandate
Founded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in 1943, the rumoured showcase will reflect the growing globalisation of cinema and television talent – and an evolution of the Globes' original founding mission, which originally sought to recognise American-made cinematic art forms as a way of expanding their global commercial audience. The awards have chosen a Non-English Language annual winner since 1949, and the Globes' new ownership continues to make new voices and expanding global viewership part of its mandate.
Meanwhile, the markets proposed for the new programme have a proud and fast-growing cinema tradition. While many directors and actors from the area have been highly avant-garde and celebrated among their Western peers for artistry and boldness (often in the face of state pressure during the Soviet era), they remain globally under-appreciated today.
The deal would therefore represent a historic moment for the region, one envisioned to provide a retrospective for local cinematic excellence, alongside contemporary nominees for the year, and purposed to bridge local creative talent with global investment and production capacity.
