The 2022 edition of the Formagination competition, open to anyone with a great format idea, has awarded first prize to Family Ties or Lies from Studio BRB’s , following the live presentation at the Realscreen Summit in Dana Point.
The judges praised the clarity of the concept, which sees pairs of siblings – some real, some actually strangers – competing in a house for prize money, with both other contestants and viewers at home trying to discern who’s really related and who’s faking. In a first for the competition, now in its 10th edition, Family Ties or Lies also won the Audience Favorite award.
Second place went to Pet Detective, an animal-focused series that tells stories about missing pets that includes true crime elements as investigators try to find the lost pets and return them to their owners.
The finalists were:
Christian Gamboa (Philippines) — Two Timers
Niamh Kennedy-North and Jenni Baynham (Studio BRB, Canada) — Family Ties or Lies
Leah Rifkin (Scarlet Lens Productions, Canada) — Dance It Out
Ian Stevenson (Bondi Beach Productions, Australia) — Pet Detective
Aaron Wells (The Concept Collective, U.S.) — Split 2 Hit
The three prizes awarded at the live presentation of Formagination at Realscreen Summit were:
1st place: up to US$25,000, which shall be awarded in two stages ($5,000 for further development of the idea for the format, and up to $20,000 that may be invested by Armoza in further development of the idea for format), as well as one registration to Realscreen Summit 2023.
2nd place: an Entertainment Master Class module scholarship and one registration to Realscreen Summit 2023.
Audience favorite: one registration to Realscreen Summit 2023.
Actor, producer, singer, digital media star and television personality Kalen Allen hosted this year’s edition of the competition.
Launched in 2010 by the Israeli format house, Formagination focused for its first seven years on local talent in Israel. Over the span of the contest, winning formats have since gone on to air in various territories, including 2016 contender Sex Tape (which is now in 11 territories) and Marry Me Now, which was launched in the 2015 competition and has aired in nine territories. The 2019 winner, The Senseless Dating Show, was launched internationally in the fall of 2020.
