London Book Fair partners with BAFTA

The London Book Fair (LBF) has announced a new partnership with The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to promote links between the books and broadcast creative industries.

This builds on LBF’s established relationship with the worlds of Film and Television, which for many years has included programming content and networking events, curated in collaboration with Julian Friedmann, Blake Friedmann Agency, and Curtis Brown Creative. For the past five years, LBF has also hosted a seminar at MIPJUNIOR: ‘What Publishers Want To See From Producers’, that last year included publishers from Hachette, Random House Children’s Books, Tate and Egmont, and is scheduled to take place again this October.

LBF will support the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum, run by BAFTA in partnership with Rocliffe, which will focus on discovering new talented children’s screenwriters. Three writers will be chosen to have extracts from their scripts performed by professional actors at a showcase event at BAFTA headquarters, 195 Piccadilly in London, on Saturday, September 27, 2014.

LBF will sponsor the overall winner to have an expenses-paid trip to MIPJUNIOR international children’s programming market in Cannes in October. The winner will accompany an LBF delegation, including top professionals from UK children’s publishing, to Cannes and they will benefit from extensive industry introductions and networking opportunities.

Jacks Thomas, director of The London Book Fair said, “Books and broadcast are a wonderful partnership: the leading lights in the UK Creative Industries portfolio. How fantastic, therefore, to partner with BAFTA on this exciting new writing initiative, which showcases great talent in the field of children’s entertainment. Greater still, is the opportunity to introduce this talent to MIP Junior in Cannes, where children’s publishing and children’s media come together.”

LBF 2015, the 44th fair, will take place from April 14-16, 2015 at Olympia London. LBF’s London Book and Screen Week will run for the second year, with the book fair as the pivotal three day event within a five day programme. London Book and Screen Week will open with LBF’s Publishing for Digital Minds Conference on Monday April 13, the day before LBF opens.

Mexico is Market Focus country in 2015, following Korea in 2013. In 2014 LBF’s charity of the year was Book Aid International.