New directions for Portfolio

Toronto-based Portfolio Entertainment is making moves into new genres, with the company launching its first 'unscripted drama' series; its first kids drama; as well as a new preschool puppet series.

Portfolio, better known for its magazines and lifestyle output, is making its first moves into unscripted reality with Taipei Diaries, a 16×30' series documenting the lives of six 20-somethings who try to build careers as English teachers in Asia.

Directed by David Hansen, the show airs in Canada on Life Network, which recently renewed the show. Toronto-based West Wind Pictures produces, with Portfolio taking all rights outside Canada.

Portfolio's president and co-founder Joy Rosen told C21 that she is currently seeking more 'unscripted drama': {The genre sells well and it's a whole lot easier to finance than scripted drama. The key is to find a director with vision.{ She added that Portfolio has two other reality projects in the pipeline with West Wind.

Portfolio's first children's drama comes from Texan producer Champion Entertainment. Baker Street Alley Club is a 8×30' live-action series about six misfit kids from suburban Texas who form a secret club in a garage. {Little Rascals for the new generation,{ said Rosen. The series also Champion's first move into kids drama.

The Canadian distributor is also returning to the preschool genre with a new French-Canadian puppet series Igloo-Gloo. {It's a genre we've had success with in the past with our mid-90s hit Groundling Marsh, which we sold into 97 territories,{ said Rosen.

Igloo-Gloo (pictured) is a 91×11' hand-puppet show about two cute seal pups who live on an ice floe. Rosen likened the show to the 1980 movie The Gods Must be Crazy, in which a Kalahari tribesman tries to fathom out the meaning behind a discarded cola bottle.

{The two seals explore their ice floe and find household items and try to understand what they're for,{ she said. {Preschoolers will love it because they'll recognise all the things that the pups find.{ The show is produced by award-winning French-Canadian outfit Zone3 and aired last spring on TVQ (TeleQuebec).

Rosen admitted that the preschool market was pretty much saturated but nonetheless had high hopes for Igloo-Gloo. {For preschool to sell well internationally it mustn't be too culturally specific and this show fits that criteria. There is no language and there are no humans.{ Portfolio has all TV and home-video rights outside Canada and will launch the series at Mipcom.