Monte Carlo beats marts as Hollywood star bazaar
The 46th fest was swarming with famous faces from American TV
And even though it shuttered its own mart due to lack of interest back in 2000, when it comes to wooing Hollywood and the stars, it has the edge over nearby Cannes' Mip TV marts.
The 46th Monte, June 26-July 1, was swarming with famous faces from American TV.
Hobnobbing with head of state Prince Albert of Monaco were "Commander in Chief" star Geena Davis, "Medium's" Patricia Arquette, "Lost" souls Daniel Dae Kim and Jorge Garcia and practically the entire cast of "Grey's Anatomy" led by title thesp Ellen Pompeo.
"Law & Order" guru Dick Wolf -- Monaco's honorary consul in Los Angeles -- and stars of the long-running procedural were also in town for a soiree hosted by French broadcaster TF1 in honor of the copshow, a genre that has been a good ratings performer over the years.
"The festival is getting better and better," Wolf says.
With hindsight, organizers made a shrewd move by carrying on with the TV festival, which has become a useful rendezvous on European promotional tours.
"It used to be a hard job persuading the Hollywood majors to come, but in the last three years attitudes have really changed," fest VP David Tomatis says. "Monte Carlo is a great place to reach media from a wide range of countries in a single trip, and the stars like coming here."
The few no-shows included "CSI's" Gary Dourdan and "24" star Kiefer Sutherland, who won a Golden Nymph for actor in a drama series.
For the dozen or so actors associated with Disney series, it was clearly the best leg in a promo tour also taking in London, Paris and Milan.
Amateur golfer Dennis Haysbert, star of CBS first-season hit drama "The Unit," gave the 280 accredited hacks something to write about when he bemoaned the assassination of his character President David Palmer in "24." "Imagine what the world might have been like if John F. Kennedy, if Martin Luther King, if Malcolm X, had not been killed. Our country wouldn't be in the state it is now," the thesp opines.
If U.S. stars stole the limelight, kudos was more evenly spread in the competition for Monte Carlo's Golden Nymph statuettes.
For the first time, the fest awarded international audience prizes for the world's most-watched shows, which went to "Desperate Housewives," "CSI" and "The Bold and the Beautiful."
In the drama category, "24" nabbed international producer for the folks at Imagine Entertainment, Real Time and Twentieth Century Fox TV.
The U.K.'s "Afterlife" won actress for Lesley Sharp and European producer for Clerkenwell Films.
HBO's "Entourage" was the only U.S. winner in the comedy category, nabbing international producer; actor went to Chris Langham of Brit show "The Thick of It"; actress went to "Extras" star Ashley Jensen; and European producer went to Philip Voges and Alban Rehnitz for the German show "Turkish for Beginners."
Although Touchstone TV's production has tripled in four years, VP Barry Jossen took time out to head the festival's TV film jury, a category he noted was devoid of U.S. candidates.
"A lot of the shows are culturally specific, which means they are less likely to travel as well as the films made in America," he said, commenting on the lineup.
French entrant "Mademoiselle Gigi" nabbed Nymphs for direction (Caroline Huppert), actress (Juliette Lamboley) and film.
Helen Mirren won actress in a miniseries for "Elizabeth I"; actor in the category went to Benedict Cumberbatch for the BBC's "To the Ends of the Earth"; miniseries went to the Russian show "Apocripha: Music for St. Peter and St. Paul."
