Roma Khanna builds purposeful scripted content for the Clintons’ HiddenLight Productions

HiddenLight’s Chelsea and Hillary Clinton

In the crowded and expensive world of scripted content, big names and A-list talent are often the key to cutting through. A production company led by former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, her daughter Chelsea and Richard Branson’s documentary-making son Sam, therefore, is an attractive proposition.

HiddenLight Productions launched in the midst of the pandemic, swallowing up Branson Jr’s factual-focused Sundog Pictures, and came out of the gates with Apple TV+ unscripted series Gutsy Women, fronted by Hillary and Chelsea, and Patricia Bright’s If I Could Tell You Just One Thing for YouTube.

The company also has star executives on board, with ex-Virgin Media MD Johnny Webb overseeing unscripted and executive chair Roma Khanna, former president of MGM’s TV group and digital, handling scripted. Khanna says her aim is to “help stories and people from around the world, who don’t always have a platform, shine.”

“What we’re looking for are bright, strong threads, stories that relate deeply to our human condition and share insight into a world, culture or person that we might not have had before,” she adds.

But this is television, not homework, so the key is to make the content entertaining rather than worthy. “I like to say that in the world of broccoli versus chocolate, we’re making chocolate, but we love broccoli and we may just slip some in and you may or may not notice,” Khanna says. “On the scripted side, it’s about the emotional connection that allows you to think about the human interaction, the planet and cultures a little bit differently through a connection with a character or characters.”

HiddenLight has already acquired the rights to adapt Gayle Tzemach Lemmon’s book The Daughters of Kobani for TV. Drawing upon hundreds of hours of interviews and on-the-ground reporting, it tells the story of an all-female Kurdish militia who took on ISIS in Northern Syria and won. Khanna says this speaks to a shift in TV trends generally, which play right to the heart of what her company is aiming to achieve.

“What I believe has shifted, which is music to our ears as it aligns with our world view, is the welcoming of international content into the Western market,” she says. “It’s fi nally shifted from being willing to listen, hear and tell international stories to now telling stories with international storytellers and by international storytellers.

“We don’t view our role as taking a story and developing it ourselves; we’re here to support the storyteller no matter where they’re from. Storytellers are being given tools and platforms now, rather than just telling a story and then having it taken away and done in a new way by another company. Those voices are being allowed to shine directly with no translator, and that’s a wonderful development.”

Given the names, scale and ambition, one would expect the majority of HiddenLight projects to land, as Gutsy Women has done, with the streaming giants, “but the role of cable, premium cable and broadcast remains,” Khanna says. “There are stories looking for the widest platform possible and, while the international coproduction market has evolved, there’s still an opportunity for partnerships that allow a different business model that we all welcome.

“We welcome going direct to channels that don’t always get the opportunity to compete in this world of proliferating content and platforms. We can imagine a different partnership that allows us to take advantage of a different business model. With the streamers, wonderful as they are as partners, there’s not a lot of IP able to be retained.”

In September, the company announced it had optioned Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series of novels, which follow the titular character who, after serving as a nurse during the Second World War, inherits a private investigation business. Khanna is at Content London this week hunting a writer for the TV adaptation.

“We’re incredibly excited to be developing that with Jacqueline and we’re looking for the right writer,” she says. “It’s got to be somebody who really understands the role of women in the time of change and the opportunities that present themselves, which aren’t always easy to take advantage of but can have a long-lasting impact.”

Hidden agenda

Former MGM exec Roma Khanna is building out a slate of purposeful scripted content for HiddenLight Productions, the new shingle from Hillary Rodham Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Sam Branson. Clive Whittingham reports.

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