The International Content Market for Interactive Media opens its new Talent Pavilion contest to creative freelancers; Deadline for entries is November 16th.

PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 16, 1998--For its fifth edition, Reed Midem Organisation is pleased to announce that the New Talent Pavilion competition, previously focused exclusively on student projects, is now also open to freelance and amateur designers, programmers, authors, scriptwriters and musicians. This competition's mission is to bring awareness to new innovative talent and projects from around the world. A true job-bank and talent pool, the New Talent Pavilion has several goals: provide the winners with jobs in the industry, generate investments opportunities and funding and ultimately find publishers for the projects presented.

From an estimated 200 or more entries, the 30 most outstanding projects representing a variety of domains: games, education, children's, experimental, Internet technologies will be selected by an international jury in Paris this coming December. Entries are open to all platforms.

The winners will be invited to present their projects during Milia and Milia Games and will be showcased in the New Talent Pavilion, a special area within the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, February 9-12, 1999. Who can apply ?

--A STUDENT (or group of students) who is taking or has taken a multimedia course during the academic years 1997/1998 or 1998/1999 and who has not previously had a project selected for a prior edition of the New Talent Pavilion.

--A freelance professional (or group of freelance professionals), e.g. game designer, programmer, author, scriptwriter, graphic designer, musician, etc.

--A salaried professional or an amateur who has personally developed a project that is distinct from his/her professional occupation (i.e. who has developed a personal project independently of his/her professional activity) Deadline for entries : November 16th, 1998 The New Talent Pavilion is supported by:

--INA (Institut National de l'Audiovisuel): investigator and experimenter - both in content (in particular with the Multi-delivery production Studio) and in technological choices. INA has set itself the task of discovering and training new talents in multimedia and new forms of network-linked audiovisual production. Since the New Talent Pavilion's inception in 1995, INA has been a stout supporter and principal partner in the development of the New Talent Pavilion and particularly contributes through the collection of European projects. The following organisations contribute to the collection of projects in their territories:

--The Australian Ngapartji Multimedia Center, based in Adelaide, which organises programmes in multimedia and supports the development of South Australian companies specialised in interactive multimedia and online services with the aim of becoming the most intensive per-capita users of interactive multimedia and on-line services in the world.

--The Japanese association AMD (Association of Multimedia Developers) established in 1994, contributes to the development of information-oriented companies of Japan by maintaining the growth of communication infrastructures. 150 digital content production companies are members of this association, supported by the Minister of Communication of Japan.

--IMIF (The Israeli Multimedia & Internet Forum) is a non-profit organisation that comprises more than 60 Israeli companies specialised in the development and production of interactive products and technologies. The IMIF aims to initiate new business ties between Israeli companies and international interactive media actors in order to encourage the competitiveness of Israeli companies at an international level. Some Examples of New Talent Pavilion Results

Virginia Torres Gonzales (NTP '97) was hired by ANAYA INTERACTIVE (Spain); David Balcom (NTP '97) hired by IBM (US); Kristy Kang (NTP '97) hired by FUJITSU CORP. (Japan); Tota Hasegawa (NTP '98) hired by the Design Development Department at SONY CORPORATION CREATIVE P. CENTER (Tokyo); Luis Henrique (NTP '98) hired by UNION CONSULTORIA EM INFORMATICA (Brazil).

Anthony Rowe and James Lanes (NTP '98) created their own company and count among their clients: PHILIPS, CHRISTIAN AID, and the DUTCH GOVERNMENT. Tuomas Honka, Member of the '98 New Talent Pavilion met a Finnish publisher at Milia and is now on the way to publish his project "Poika", Since Milia, he entered several competitions and successfully won a series of prizes: Art Award of Lapland (Mai '98), Prix New-Media in the design competition Vuoden Huiput'98 in Finland (and the "Best Scandinavian CD-Rom" prize organised by the Scandinavian Interactive Media Event). Sally Pryor (NTP '97) received an award for 'Postcard from Tunis' at the New Media Invision Awards in November 97. Two French companies FLAMMARION and INDEX + co-published Edouard Lussan's project 'BD Interactive' selected by the New Talent Pavilion '96 and renamed the title `Teddy Bear Operation'. The title was nominated for the Milia d'Or Awards 1997 and won the Milia d'Or in the Edutainment category. It has been localized in Dutch by HALLOWEEN in Holland and localizations have been negociated in Japan, Germany and Denmark.

MILIA and MILIA GAMES will take place February 9-12th, 1999 at The Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France.

MILIA -The International Content Market for Interactive Media- was launched by Reed Midem Organisation in January, 1994. It is the world's only international event dedicated to interactive media content regardless of the platform or technology. MILIA's aim is to bring together, over a five day period, key decision-makers and professionals in the interactive media industry to negociate licences, co-productions, and distribution agreements and to forge strategic alliances, joint ventures and to scout new talent. MILIA '98 attracted professionnals from 57 countries to the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, last February. Companies exhibiting on stand numbered 1,088, while the total number of companies represented was 2,590.