Cannes: Maybe Prince Edward should make a cameo appearance in a Canadian mip-tv booth more often. Of course, there’s little doubt Canadians would have reported a very successful market without the visit by His Royal Highness – to the Rhombus International booth in the Palais des Festivals, following an invitation by Rhombus to drop by for a chat – but it certainly didn’t hurt and it worked wonders for the celebrity buzz.

On the sales front, the Canadian contingent at mip, the international television market held here April 15-20, reported such strong trade that the ‘bags of money’ raked in may have ended in cheerfully paid excess baggage charges on flights home.

Home video outlets took a very aggressive tack at the market, according to cbc’s head of international sales, Meg Pinto, who added that, rights clearance difficulties aside, the home video market presents a ‘really exciting opportunity’ for the cbc.

While Pinto recalls hearing from a variety of sources interested in selling cbc titles on video, including other broadcasters, she says the public broadcaster has to take care to establish itself correctly in this market.

While the selling of one type of video might be best accomplished via a direct response 1-800 number for one product, Pinto says a different strategy might work best for somthing else. She suggests videos might be packaged in boxed sets or sold through deparment stores or specialty stores or tied to other merchandising efforts.

She says cbc wants to develop a brand identity for cbc-label videos, some of which are marketed in Canada by Astral Video. She says cbc has been talking to the u.k. about the possibility of establishing a home video library there.

As for program sales at mip, Pinto lists a full network pbs sale for the Kurt Browning special as well as several other territories. Sold to E! Entertainment in the u.s. just before mip, FashionFile was attracting interest, as was the one-hour doc on Lou Gehrig’s sufferer Sue Rodrigues, Who Owns my Life? Dieppe did very well, having sold to a&e just before mip. Pinto says news and current affairs packages, which cbc began selling eight months back, also performed well. These products include segments from such shows as Man Alive, CBC Prime Time News and Witness.

From its expansive booth overlooking the harbor west of the Palais, Alliance Communications celebrated this market as a ‘turning point’ in its history, according to Rola Zayed, television vice-president of Alliance International. With all of the company’s divisions located in one booth, it was easy for buyers interested in discussing other matters, for instance, to do so without changing locations. Zayed says sales were particularly strong for such projects as Due South, The Mighty Jungle, Blanche and Emilie, among others. She says the Alliance-cbs series Dark Eyes, now shooting in Toronto, will send a pilot to the l.a. screenings in May, adding that Alliance was preselling its future production slate at this market.

Great North Releasing was also moving at a brisk pace, with sales and marketing manager Nola Wuttunee handling 75 requests for cassettes on the market’s opening day! Finding Great North’s experience allows it to better understand what broadcaster clients are after, Wuttunee says she was very busy, especially promoting 10 new Canadian titles, including Cristine Richey’s debut film In the Gutter and Other Good Places.

Niv Fichman of Rhombus International said sales were also going well for the well-known arts producer, now royally graced, but he says the company was not pushing hard on Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, now doing the theatrical circuit with success. Other titles garnering presale interest include Speak Low: The Songs of Kurt Weill and The Planets, a 52-minute performance ballet on ice featuring the Duchesnays.

The Multimedia Group of Canada made a hit at the market with its inside-the-front-entrance video wall running clips from its Just Kidding series.

Dean Oros, Multimedia’s director of international sales, says the video display encouraged so many buyers to request the series that many had to be turned away becuase it had already sold in their territory. He says he sold packages of 200 clips – one to 1.5 minutes each – to the Arabic speaking nations and South-East Asia as well as making a big sale of Stopwatch half-hours to Spain and Italy. Multimedia also saw significant success with its composer series (Beethoven Lives Upstairs was the first) and the fifth Cirque de Soleil special, Saltimbanco.

Cambium Releasing said its animated product, including Christopher the Christmas Tree and Nilus The Sandman – The First Day, attracted interest from around the world, as did Eric’s World and the half-hour show for older people, The Time of Your Life.

Rita Carbone Fleury, Cambium’s director of marketing and distribution, also reported several territories interested in the one-hour special featuring the Holly Cole Trio, My Foolish Heart, which is apparently tres populaire in Japan.

Films Transit’s Jan Rofekamp says one-off documentaries moved very well through his firm’s booth, including The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, produced with zdf and sold to Western Europe and to pbs for a low-six-figure price tag. Shelley Saywell’s No Man’s Land and Janis Lundman and Adrienne Mitchell’s Lawn and Order also attracted much interest.

Mediamax’s Annick de Vries did well with the newsroom series Scoop, had a lot of interest in the popular Iris the Happy Professor and in Productions sda’s new kids’ series for the two-to-five set, Max the Cat.

Paragon International was looking very pleased with its results. President Isme Bennie says the Heartland/Minds Eye feature Guitarman sold throughout Asia via hbo Asia, did well in Latin America, Italy, the mid-East, the u.k. and in Israel with France showing ‘serious interest’ and the possibility opening up for a u.s. home video deal.

Bennie also reported renewals for the next season of Insight Productions’ Ready or Not, for the perennial fave Lamb Chop’s Play-Along, and Sherlock Holmes Returns. Lacewood’s Katie and Orbie sold 13 half-hours to France.

Filmoption International had a very busy market with a great deal of interest in its nature and environmental material. Vice-president Lizanne Rouillard and international sales director Nathalie D’Souza reported a big package of nature shows sold to Germany, and major doc sales to France and Latin America; Les Productions jbm’s popular children’s series Watatatow was going well also, with 204 x 30 episodes sold to Isreal, which also bought Productions Sogestalt’s La Princesse Astronaute’s 26 half-hours (26 more are in production).

As always, The Science Show was a good seller, adding several territories to its list and some scores on the home video front, plus a cable/satellite sale in Spain.

Quebec neighbor Cinar was doing well with presales for its major miniseries The Dionne Quintuplets, including strong interest from New Zealand, the Benelux countries, Greece, Scandinavia and, says Cinar’s Theresa Holst, ‘on and on.’

Cinar’s animation was also a hit, with the half-hour episodes planned for Little Lulu creating a sensation among Latin American buyers and interest in several other countries. Are You Afaird of the Dark? chalked up many renewals, as did The Busy World of Richard Scarry.

Holst says increasing numbers of children’s services is a big plus for the likes of Cinar: ‘It’s just a real pleasure to see the importance of children’s programming being recognized.’

Sullivan Entertainment checked in with strong sales, including major packages to, among others, Greece, Indonesia, the u.k. and China. Sullivan’s marketing director, Kim Hobbs, says Sullivan also made a multi-title video deal with Britain. Sullivan also reports ‘huge interest’ in Brenda Sherwood’s half-hour special The Bellringer and a good reception for 1994 tv movies Only The Angels Listened (for abc) and Betrayal of Innocence (for cbc).

And last but certainly not least, the National Film Board capped a very nice sale at the market – though the board’s Joanne Leduc wouldn’t give the dollar figure – of 700 hours of programming to Sateltec, a cable/satellite company in Argentina. The nfb also sold a package of Norman McLaren films to Turkey, saw a lot of interest in Alanis Obomsawin’s Kahnesatake and the film When Women Kill. In addition to interest in other programs, she says interest was high in the animated short Bob’s Birthday, and nfb/Channel 4 (u.k.) coproduction.