GEITF

Opening Session

Celebrity Juice
Keith Lemon will host this live special edition of ITV2’s award-winning comedy panel game show, featuring team captains Holly Willoughby and Emma Bunton, who will lead teams featuring some of TV’s biggest names. Our bang tidy teams will battle their opponents in a series of raucous rounds, including TV themed physical games and quizzes, all the while facing Keith’s usual high-octane antics.

Sessions

Hatufim to Homeland: The Anatomy of a Hit DramaThis session will feature conversation with Gideon Raff and Avi Nir, the Israeli creators of the series Prisoners of War (Hatufim) and those who brought the series to life in the US as Homeland. They will review how the deal was born and the business and creative challenges that came with adapting a big Israeli hit series into a successful American programme.

Ruth Jones: bethsyddyneich pen gwallgofWelsh TV actress and writer Ruth Jones will be talking to Boyd Hilton about being an actor, writer and co-founding her own production company in their session, Ruth Jones: bethsyddyneich pen gwallgof, which is Welsh for, “What’s in your mad head?”

BBC Director-General 2.0BBC Director-General 2.0 will ask the experts what key decisions face the incoming Director-General, as Mark Thompson prepares to depart the post. How will the BBC enter the next phase of its history? How might the BBC continue to evolve under his (or her) stewardship?

Doing Business in China
Come on a tour d'horizon to learn how to work with China.  Hear from CCTV commissioner Jean Dong plus others TBA, talking about selling your format in this market.
 

The First Ten Minutes
This session will examine hit dramas Scott and Bailey and Call the Midwife with the creative teams behind them. The session will explore how to make the crucial first ten minutes of that first episode compelling and addictive, examine the significance of the marketing and PR before the show airs and question what impact the channel it is aired on has on it.

Dragons Den
Budding broadcast entrepreneurs will also have the opportunity to face the formidable TV dragons – Evan Davis will host Dragons’ Den at the Festival, with Duncan Bannatyne and guests inviting entrepreneurs, inventors and ideas people to pitch for real money with TV related business ventures.

Who Needs A Commission Anyway?
YouTube superstar Jamal Edwards, the hottest internet mogul on the block, joins Justin Gayner (co-founder of Channel Flip)  and other, on Who Needs A Commission Anyway?

This session introduces some of the entrepreneurs making millions (of hits, and even pounds) via YouTube and other direct to consumer platforms.

BBC Olympic SessionHot on the heels of the biggest international event of the year, the Festival’s BBC Olympic session will bring together core members of the production team to relay the good, the bad and the ugly moments of delivering the greatest show on Earth.

TV Piracy
Rick Falkvinge, founder and leader of the Swedish Pirate Party, will discuss television piracy with Graham Linehan and further invited quests, in what promises to be a heated and impassioned debate!