Sounds of New York
New Media
Sounds of New York
From April 17th to April 21st 2023, Sounds of New York will welcome 7 French podcasters to take part in a one-week learning expedition to New York to meet key industry players. This program from Villa Albertine and Albertine Fondation, supported by Spotify, Radio France, RFI (France Médias Monde), SACD, l’institut français, INA, and Paradiso Media –– aims to support the development of French podcasts with high international potential.
With the rise of podcasting, a community of creators is booming: independent hosts and studios are inventing new forms of storytelling across all genres, from fiction to nonfiction, news, culture, and business. In France, podcasting remains a niche ecosystem where only a few studios manage to break through to the international market. Sounds of New York is an invitation to nurture a dialogue with both the major media firms and the independent podcasting community in the United States, where the market is already developed, and a multitude of creators, studios, platforms, advertising agencies, and types of media serve as inspiration for the budding French podcasting scene.
In 2023, Sounds of New York will provide participants with a deeper understanding the American podcasting ecosystem through meetings with industry leaders based in New York; provide inspiration to French podcast creators on writing podcasts; and promote French podcasters.
During the five days in New York, participants will benefit from a presentation on the podcast ecosystem; visits and meetings with platforms, media, studios, and producers; and a cocktail party networking event where French participants pitch their projects and meet with New York professionals.
Discover the seven participants of the 2023 Edition of Sounds of New York:
Romain Masson
For more than 20 years, Romain Masson worked in France and abroard, for public and private institutions and non-profit organizations, as director and journalist (Canal Plus, Arte, Médecins du Monde), audiovisual attaché in Beirut, Warsaw and Dakar (Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs) and audio producer (Radio France, ONG RAES, Making Waves). He is a collaborator at Radio France as a documentary producer and executive producer (France Culture, France Inter, France Info, France Musique, FIP). He contributed to the creation of Making Waves, a French institution established in Seine Saint-Denis, created to favor, through radio and podcast, the emergence of spaces for dialogue, transmission, expression, and creation.
Claire Richard
Claire Richard is an author of fiction and non-fiction, especially for radio. She produced short documentaries for Arte Radio (“Soumission Impossible,” “les mauvais rêves ») and fictions: « Cent Façons de Disparaître,” “Les Chemins de désir,” “Le Télégraphe Céleste,” for Arte Radio et France Culture. She received many awards, nationally and internationally : Prix Nouveau Talent SACD 2017, Prix Europa 2019, Prix Italia 2019, Prix de la fiction SACD au Paris Podcast Festival 2019, Prix de l’écriture radiophonique 2020 de la SGDL. She also wrote books such as “Des Mains heureuses,” a poetic essay on the invisible continent of touch, published mid-January at the Éditions du Seuil.
Sarah Lou Lepers
Journalist and reporter in several French newsrooms, Sarah Lou Lepers is a podcast author and producer. Her first creation “Daddy Roland” is broadcast on Arte Radio. She produced several episodes of the podcast “Transfert” (Slate) with the team of Charlotte Pudlowski. She collaborates with Louie Media and produces some episodes of the podcast “Emotions.” She was nominated in 2021 in the documentary category of Paris Podcast Festival for “Éloïse Improvise,” a 7-episode series produced by Elephant Doc. She helps the Agence France Presse develop narrative podcasts, by conceiving podcasts at the crossroads of news and documentaries: “Sur le Fil,” “Le Poison de Poutine” and “Turbulences.” She is involved in educational workshops for media in schools and prisons.
Marie-Yemta Moussanang
Marie-Yemta Moussanang is an independent franco-Chadian researcher and entrepreneur. She produces the podcast “Afrotopiques” that documents the metamorphosis of emancipation from a south perspective. As a graduate in political science, contemporary philosophy, and creative industries, she works between Paris, Dakar, N’Djamena and Bamako. She develops RADIOBOUGOU, a “Maison d’édition d’Oralités” based in Sahel, to accompany the emergence of natif podcasts in Sub-Saharan Africa, and to promote the circulation of emancipatory knowledge. She teaches at Sciences Po Paris.
Kensley Jules
A former student of CinéFabrique, Kensley Jules is passionate about writing in all its forms. He is a laureate of the Beaumarchais-SACD grant in the sonic fiction category for “Bloc noir.” He was selected for the Paper to Film x Audible call for applications in the historical sonic fiction category. He was also selected in various festivals, including Festival l’Ecrit à l’Ecran, Valence Scénario, Tomorrow’s Stories, New Images, INA, Series Mania Forum. He is currently editing a pilot episode of the fantastic audio series “Bloc noir” and is working on two horror audio series for the platform BLYND of Anatole Studio.
Caroline Gillet
Caroline Gillet has been making documentaries for the French national public radio “France Inter” for the last 15 years. Her work focuses on topics related to society, intimacy, and transmission between generations and cultures. Her latest podcast, ‘Inside Kabul’ -adapted into a 30-minute animation film for France Televisions and BBC- was constructed with hundreds of voice notes sent by two young Afghan women after the takeover by taliban. Before that, she was in a charge of a weekly documentary radio program called “Foule Continentale”. Caroline also produced the daily live radio program “Tea Time Club” (adapted for France 4) and the mini podcast serie “À ton âge”. Besides radio, Caroline co-created “RADIOLIVE”, a documentary show on stage that toured for 7 years. She wrote a book for Actes Sud, worked on the podcast “Transfert” and “Entre” by Slate and directed a documentary film, “Les mères intérieures,” for France 3 on the decision to have children or not. She teaches radio reporting at the University of Louvain.
Vincent Hazard
Following a career in sound design for films in France and the United-Kingdom (alongside directors such as Costa-Gavras, Stephen Frears, or Luc Besson), Vincent Hazard becomes a TV and radio writer and producer after a training at the Femis screenwriting workshop. He writes for “Affaires sensibles,” and distinguishes himself through series like “Panda la voix du Djihad” and “22 millions” on the Bygmalion affair. He is a laureate of the 2022 Prix fiction radio of the SACD.
A Look Back at Sounds of New York’s Inaugural Edition
The inaugural edition of Sounds of New York enabled seven participants to attend 12 roundtables and masterclasses with 40 industry experts, on topics as varied as adaptations, marketing, creating children’s content and writing for audio fiction series. Highlights of the program included a visit to The New York Times and a meeting with the producers of the iconic show “The Daily,” a tour of the Gimlet and Spotify studios, and a conversation with Gimlet’s founder, Matt Lieber.
The 2022 participants were Camille Juzeau, Claire Jéhanno, Iris Ouedraogo, Axelle Jah Njiké, Emmanuel Suarez, Aladine Zaiane, Thibaud Delavigne.
The 2022 Sounds of New York jury was comprised of Claire Hazan (Spotify), Erwan Gaucher (Radio France), Sophie Bocquillon (SACD), Antoine Bayet (INA) and Lorenzo Benedetti (Paradiso Media).
Contact
Camille Jeanjean, New Media Officer: camille.jeanjean@villa-albertine.org
Louise Seban, New Media Assistant: louise.seban@villa-albertine.org
In partnership with
Albertine Foundation
The Albertine Foundation is an American nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting French-American relations through innovative cultural and educational projects. In partnership with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States, the Albertine Foundation promotes artistic, literary, and educational exchange and collaboration between creative professionals from both countries. With additional corporate, foundation, and individual support, the Albertine Foundation administers grant programs in the performing and visual arts, cinema, translation, and secondary and higher education, while providing financial sponsorship to French-American festivals and other cultural initiatives. The Albertine Foundation focuses on new and recent work of living artists and the promotion of bilingualism and the French language.
Spotify
Spotify transformed music listening forever when it launched in 2008. Discover, manage and share over 70 million tracks, including more than 2.9 million podcast titles, for free, or upgrade to Spotify Premium to access exclusive features for music including improved sound quality and an on-demand, offline, and ad-free listening experience.
Today, Spotify is the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service with 365m users, including 165m subscribers, across 178 markets.
Radio France
Radio France, France’s leading radio group has started writing its story with podcasting since 2005: a company designed around and for audio in tune with the times and in tune with users. Radio France has been a pioneer in podcasting and is now the leading producer of podcasts in France. In 2022, its podcasts reached an unprecedented number of listenings, exceeding the one billion mark – a number twice as high as in 2017 -. Its abundant catalogue of over 1.5 million podcasts, available free of charge on its mobile application, is both the digital continuity of its radio stations and a space of great freedom, creativity and innovation in sound. The development of podcasts thus constitutes an additional space for the emergence of new talents, which Radio France has been supporting for several years: artists, authors, musicians and actors who are participating in the renewal of the audio formats and sound writings that will shape the radio of tomorrow.
RFI (France Médias Monde)
RFI is a French news public radio station that broadcasts worldwide in French and in 15 other languages. RFI is part of France Médias Monde, which comprises the news channels France 24 (in French, English, Arabic, and Spanish) and the Arabic-language radio station Monte Carlo Doualiya (MCD).
Every week, RFI, France 24, and MCD broadcast worldwide and attract 242 million viewers, listeners, and users on digital environments, offering comprehensive coverage of world events, with a focus on cultural diversity and contrasting viewpoints.
Through their mission to reach listeners across all continents and as part of a global digital strategy, those outlets develop a multilingual podcast experience for the streaming of their programs and access to original audio formats.
rfi.fr
Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers (SACD)
The SACD is the oldest authors’ society in the world. Founded by Beaumarchais in 1777, the society is owned by its author members. It represents more than 60,000 authors in the cinema, audiovisual, digital creation, podcast and performing arts sectors. The SACD manages and defends their rights collectively, provides them with numerous services, offers them workspaces, advises them in their access to their social rights or matters related to their author status… SACD also supports contemporary creation and the distribution of works, thanks to the “private copy remuneration” system.
Institut français
The Institut français is responsible for France’s international cultural program. Supervised by both the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and by the Ministry of Culture, it promotes French culture abroad through cultural exchange initiatives. Operating in a space where the arts, intellectual exchange, cultural and social innovation, and linguistic partnerships interact and intersect, it is also responsible for promoting the French language and the sharing of works, artists, and ideas all over the world. The Institut français is one of Villa Albertine’s main French partners.
Institut National de l’Audiovisuel (INA)
The Institut National de l’Audiovisuel – INA, a model unique in the world, is a media rich of 80 years of TV, radio and web Heritage. With more than a billion videos viewed every year, it archives, preserves, digitizes and gives access to all audiences one of the richest audiovisual libraries. INA produces and distributes original works, provides content to journalists, directors and experts, trains student and professional communities, develops an ambitious research and innovation activity. In a context of change, the Institute participates in the reinvention of the audiovisual and digital ecosystem by deploying expertise that makes it a distinctive medium, anchored in long time and memory, concerned to transmit knowledge and know-how of which it is the depositary.
Paradiso Media
Paradiso Media produces original fiction, documentary and kids’ podcasts in France and internationally. Our podcasts genres include drama, comedy, interview, society & culture, news, thriller, science-fiction and kids. We seek to connect cultures through conversation, challenge the norm and push the boundaries of audio storytelling by bringing diverse topics, perspectives and styles to a global audience.
Founded in 2019 by Lorenzo Benedetti, Louis Daboussy and Benoit Dunaigre, the studio has produced over 20 podcasts comprising over 100 hours of content and several million downloads. Titles include L’Affaire B52, Frootch, Brut., Défense de Filmer, Mes 14 Ans, Habana Business Club, A Propos de Mon Film, Cornebidouille and many others in partnership with Spotify, Audible, Stitcher, Deezer and Sybel. In 2021 our English-language series Love Under Lockdown was nominated for a Webby Award in the “Best Documentary Podcast” category.
