Sarina Kamini collecting the unscripted award for The Masala Quest
CONTENT INDIA: The winners of the inaugural Content India Copro Pitch were announced here last night: a drama about a Delhi boy who plays detective and a documentary about India’s masala spice culture that already has an Australian broadcaster attached.
The Content India Copro Pitch 2026 brought C21’s tried-and-tested pitch competition format to Mumbai for the first time yesterday, awarding each winner a prize of £10,000 worth of marketing across C21Media’s digital, print and event products to support development and pre-sales promotion of the show.
At a busy poolside opening cocktail last night, the panel of judges announced the two winners – one scripted and one unscripted – following their live pitches earlier in the afternoon.
The scripted winner is a project called Djinn Patrol, developed by MFF & Co, an LA–based entertainment studio launched in 2024 by Miura Kite (Chinatown, Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey), formerly of Participant Media. Jaya Entertainment (Real Kashmir Football Club) is also attached to the project.
The series follows a nine-year-old Delhi boy who is obsessed with TV crime shows and imagining himself as a brilliant detective, until he finds himself embroiled in a real-life case as his friend goes missing in the maze of nearby Bhoot Bazaar.
With auspices including Neha Sharma (Under the Skin) as writer, Kite as producer and Jaya president Kilian Kerwin as producer, the project is here in Mumbai seeking distribution, production financing and potential studio partners.
The unscripted winner is The Masala Quest, a 3×30’ show that mixes food, travel and culture as Indian-Australian cook, author and so-called ‘spice evangelist’ Sarina Kamini undertakes a quest to get UNESCO to recognise the cultural and culinary significance of masala.
Western Australia-based Kamini has teamed with coproducer Sudeshna Ghosh on the project and they are here in Mumbai seeking distribution partnerships, financing opportunities to support the production, and future growth partnerships and connections for further Indo-Australian coproductions.
The Australian multicultural public broadcaster SBS has picked up the show to air this November and Kamini is in conversations about the international rights.
Speaking to C21 at the poolside opening cocktail last night, she said: “I’ve had a few people approach me to talk about ways to further the reach of the project, because it’s not just about the three-part series. It’s about the quest to preserve the art form of masala to carry that forward into different platforms.”
The Content India Copro Pitch is designed to uncover the most exciting new project ideas from the Indian production community that will resonate locally, while also looking for international coproduction partners to help the projects achieve global success.
