Miptv 2016 drama special report

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S pecial Repor t

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DRAMA SPECIAL REPORT • Ripping up the drama distribution rule book • The foundations of a global hit • The Jury’s MIPDrama Screenings selection

A pril 2016

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Drama S pecial Repor t

20 Language no barrier

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Ripping up the drama distribution rule book

The action behind the drama

DRAMA SPECIAL REPORT

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The foundations of a global hit

The Jury speaks

28

Meet the six members of the MIPDrama Jury

Twelve of the best

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The Jury’s MIPDrama Screenings selection

Looks do matter

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Locations and language are key to new dramas

Case study

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Wales stands-in for Paris in The Collection

Meet the experts

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Reed MIDEM’s Drama Buyers Advisory Board

DRAMA SPECIAL REPORT – APRIL 2016 – MIPTV News Supplement Director of Publications Paul Zilk Director of Communication Mike Williams EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT Editor in Chief Julian Newby Deputy Editor Debbie Lincoln Sub Editor Joanna Stephens Contributor Andy Fry Editorial Management Boutique Editions Technical Editor in Chief Hervé Traisnel Deputy Technical Editor in Chief Frédéric Beauseigneur Graphic Designer Carole Peres PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT Publishing Director Martin Screpel Publishing Manager Amrane Lamiri Publishing Co-ordinator Yovana Filipovic Production Assistant, Cannes Office Eric Laurent Printer Riccobono Imprimeurs, Le Muy (France) Reed MIDEM, a joint stock company (SAS), with a capital of €310.000, 662 003 557 R.C.S. NANTERRE, having offices located at 27-33 Quai Alphonse Le Gallo - 92100 BOULOGNE-BILLANCOURT (FRANCE), VAT number FR91 662 003 557.

Contents © 2016, Reed MIDEM Market Publications. Publication registered 2nd quarter 2016. Printed on PEFC Certified Paper.

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Drama S pecial Repor t

LANGUAGE NO BARRIER INTERNATIONAL DRAMA

The English-speaking markets, led by the US, continue to export high-end TV dramas around the world. But they now face increased competition from nonEnglish-language shows, which are being acquired as both formats and readymades. Andy Fry looks at some of the territories that are ripping up the drama distribution rule book

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Drama S pecial Repor t Deutschland 83 (FremantleMedia International)

GERMANY

The Germans announced their presence on the global drama stage with Generation War, an epic mini-series that explored what it was like to be a young German during the Second World War. Subsequently they gave the world cold-war drama Deutschland 83, which has been licensed to dozens of broadcasters by FremantleMedia International. Highlights included a sale to cable channel Sundance in the US and a record-breaking performance for a foreign-language drama on Channel 4 in the UK. With a follow-up series called Deutschland 86 currently in the works, the franchise still has plenty of life left in it. FremantleMedia International CEO Jens Richter calls Deutschland 83 “the must-have European drama series of the year”.

In terms of what comes next, all eyes are on Babylon Berlin, a joint venture between X-Filme, ARD Degeto, Sky and Beta Film that will start shooting in April. Set in the roaring 1920s in Berlin, the show has been created by Tom Tykwer (Cloud Atlas; Perfume; Story Of A Murderer), Achim Von Borries (Alone In Berlin) and Hendrik Handloegten (Good Bye, Lenin!). Two eight-part series are being shot at the same time, which X-Filme producer Stefan

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Arndt says “shows how enthusiastic and confident all of the partners are”.

Babylon Berlin will be distributed internationally by Beta Film, whose president Jan Mojto says “made in Germany” is now a hallmark of quality television.

“Due to the subject, the creative energy invested in the project, the names involved, its high standards and, not least, its budget, the first international reactions to the project have been very positive. Babylon Berlin doesn’t need to take second stage to any of the major international series,” he adds.

Like France, the German drama scene is starting to be affected by the global SVOD players. Amazon has just announced its first German-language series, The Wanted, starring Matthias Schweighofer as a man whose life is thrown into turmoil after a hacking attack. Netflix, meanwhile, held a pitch in Germany and selected a project created by the team behind the Oscar-winning film The Lives Of Others (2006). Entitled Dark, the 10-episode drama follows four families living in a German town as their lives are thrown into disarray when two of their children disappear. “Dark is an incredible German story that will appeal to a global audience,” says Erik Barmack, Netflix vice-president of international originals. n

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Drama S pecial Repor t

TURKEY

Queen Of The Night (Global Agency)

LATIN AMERICA

Latin American telenovelas from companies including Televisa and TV Azteca have been selling around the world for decades. A more newsworthy development is that Mexican media giant Televisa is moving aggressively into the English-language market. A good example of this is its epic series Aztecs. Based on Daniel Peters’ book The Luck Of Huemac, Aztecs will tackle the subject of the pre-Columbian empire from the vantage point of the indigenous population, rather than that of Cortez and the Conquistadors.

Another attack on the global drama arena is coming from Globo in Brazil, which is making its first-ever drama specifically for the international market — a Spanish-language show based on Brazilian scripted series Supermax. The Brazilian media giant has co-produced Spanish-language novelas before with Mexico’s TV Azteca and US Hispanic net Telemundo, but the move to make an original Spanish drama series on its own is a first for Globo.

Not surprisingly, the first target for the show is Spanish-speaking Latin America, with TV Azteca Mexico already signed up to air the 10-hour show. But Globo is convinced Supermax can travel worldwide. “This project is an evolution of our long presence in the Latin American and Hispanic markets and the value of Globo’s content to these countries’ audiences has stimulated the development of this production,” says Ricardo Scalamandre, Globo’s head of international business. “However, Supermax has a strong universal outline that will delight audiences worldwide.”

If Supermax is successful, Scalamandre says the company will make more Spanish-language shows and perhaps expand into English content. All this comes in addition to its popular home-grown telenovelas, the latest of which is Alto Astral (Forever And Ever), which attracted a 47% share at home. Globo cracked the Chinese market in 2015, selling the telenovela Side By Side to state broadcaster CCTV. It has also made good headway in Indonesia with titles including India – A Love Story and Tangled Hearts. n

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Turkey has been particularly successful with its dramas in recent years. Having established a strong client base in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, its leading distributors now regularly sell shows into Asia, Latin America and Africa, with the occasional Western European pick-up. The US has also started to pay attention to the format potential of Turkish shows, with Ay Yapim’s The End picked up by Fox. Kanal 7’s Elif is being remade for the Indonesian market, having already rated well there as a completed series. That deal was done by Eccho Rights, which has also sold Surec Films-produced Cherry Season to markets including Italy, Pakistan, Vietnam, Albania, Macedonia and Bosnia. Eccho has also had success in Latin America with Karadayi, which sold recently to Mega in Chile and Telefe in Argentina.

Barbora Susterova, sales and acquisitions director for Latin America and Iberia at Eccho Rights, says: “The mixture of strong characters and engaging storylines appeals to the local audience and there are many similarities to the traditional telenovela format.

With Turkish exports scoring well in the ratings, we expect the popularity of the genre to continue.”

Commercial broadcaster ATV’s Ziyad Varol, who heads the channel’s international sales division, says that ATV dramas have found homes in 60 to 80 countries. “As we have expanded into regions like Latin America, buyers have told us they really like the emotion in Turkish drama. Some buyers also like the mix of eastern and western culutre, while others like the strong emphasis on family values.”

Izzet Pinto is CEO of independent distributor Global Agency, which is headlining four dramas at MIPTV, including Kosem, the follow up to international hit series The Magnificent Century. Pinto says: “The good news is that revenues are still growing for Turkish drama. It now sells regularly into more than 100 territories.” Among the fastest growing markets for Global Agency are Africa and Asia. Meanwhile, its penetration of the Latin America market is rising.

Also significant is the increasingl interest from the US in formats such as Game Of Silence.

Locally channels see drama is an increasingly important source of revenue. Kanal D, one of Turkey’s leading broadcasters, has adopted an active strategy to focus on drama in primetime to attract advertising revenue. n

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Drama S pecial Repor t FRANCE

ST TROPEZ and Braquo were among the first French-language dramas to capture the global market’s attention. But game changers for French TV were undoubtedly the excellent Canal+ show Engrenages (Spiral), sold by Newen Distribution to countries including the UK; and Les Revenants (The Returned), which sold widely in its original form and was also adapted for A&E in the US. The success of Engrenages encouraged buyers to dig a little deeper, with the result that an Newen’s deputy managing director, Julien Leroux, says French producers are now more in tune with the international market than ever — a fact demonstrated by a more recent show called Witnesses. “Witnesses was one of the best French exports of 2015, selling to around 25 countries including Channel 4 UK, Channel One Russia and SBS Australia. A second series will start shooting in spring with a new investigation, so we are happy about that.”

Increased interest in French drama is evident in terms of revenues, with sales and pre-sales of drama to foreign buyers increasing by 116% to €67.5m in 2014.

That trend looks set to continue thanks to the emergence of new business models. Federation Entertainment, for example, is currently making French-language series Marseille for Netflix in France. While success in the domestic market is clearly the priority, Federation founder and CEO Pascal Breton says the casting of Gerard Depardieu will give the show international appeal.

Also of note was Canal+’s decision to back an English-language production in the shape of Versailles.

With season one performing strongly in France and sold around the world by Zodiak Rights, the decision to give Versailles a second series was straightforward.

Another interesting title is Un Village Francais (A French Village), created by Frederic Krivine, Emmanuel Dauce and Philippe Triboit. Set in a fictional village in German-occupied France, the show was first aired on France 3 in 2009 and has now attracted a loyal international fanbase. With a seventh and final series planned for 2016, the entire collection was sold by 100% Distribution to MHz Networks in the US (and also sold to MBC in Korea). Explaining why Un Village Francais has found a global audience, Cecilia Rossignol, director of sales and acquisitions at 100% Distribution, reinforces the view that authentic hyper-local stories can travel: “Un Village Francais is about people who find themselves in extreme situations and must make choices. In this, it is a universal series.” n

NORDIC TERRITORIES

Nordic drama has taken the world by storm in recent years. Shows including The Bridge, The Killing and Borgen have sold extensively and led to a rush of interest in Danish, Swedish and Norwegian scripted shows. DR Denmark’s latest offering, financial crime series Follow The Money, has sold to markets including Israel, the UK, Benelux and Australia, while DRG-distributed Norwegian drama Eye Witness has been sold in its completed form to 18 territories.

It has also been picked up for adaptation by USA Network.

One reason for the success of Nordic producers has been their willingness to co-produce, says Marianne Gray, executive producer/producer at leading Swedish company Yellow Bird Entertainment, part of Zodiak Media (which itself recently merged with Banijay Group). “We were always open to the idea of co-production, because we are a small territory,” she says. “Co-production means bigger budgets and the ability to make shows of higher quality.”

That willingness to collaborate puts Yellow Bird in a strong position as it negotiates the new global market for drama, Gray says. She points to a number of shows including Devil’s Sanctuary, an English-language, book-based thriller that the company is currently developing for television.

Yellow Bird is best known for its adaptations of works of literature. Crime continues to be a key genre, but the company has found a new model whereby it works with established authors on new ideas. An example already on the market is Jo Nesbo’s Occupied, a co-production with ARTE. In development, Gray adds, is Cold Cuts, an 8 x 45 mins series based on an original idea from one of Sweden’s most successful crime writers, Leif GW Persson. The show centres on a group of individuals within the Stockholm Police tasked with investigating old murder cases that others before them have failed to solve.

Zodiak, it should be noted, is not the only company to have spotted the international potential of Nordic drama. FremantleMedia owns Miso Film, the producer of hit shows including Modus and Acquitted, while StudioCanal is backing Denmark’s SAM Productions. StudioCanal will soon be distributing the first big show to come from SAM — an exploration of faith called Rides Upon The Storm. n

Jo Nesbo’s Occupied

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Drama S pecial Repor t Under Suspicion (Bambu Producciones)

SPAIN

Spanish drama is starting to gain prominence on the international market.

One company that has had a lot of success is Bambu Producciones, which is best known for Gran Hotel, a sumptuous period drama that was sold around the world by Beta Film and is now being remade for the US by Televisa USA. The new version will be set in pre-Fidel Castro 1950s Cuba. Commenting on that decision, Televisa USA’s head of production and distribution Chris Philip says: “Setting Gran Hotel in a sexy, sinful atmosphere offers up a rich fusion of glamour and intrigue deeply rooted in an exceptional murder mystery format with a proven footprint.”

Bambu has also had success with other shows. One is Velvet, a fashion-industry period piece that has been a strong performer on Italy’s Rai 1 and Sony Entertainment TV in Germany, as well as being streamed by Netflix in multiple markets. Another popular Bambu title is the thriller Under Suspicion. After doing well on Antena 3 Spain, it rated strongly on Canale 5 Italy. And then there is Refugees, a sci-fi co-pro thriller with BBC Worldwide.

Another Spanish title worth highlighting is Red Bracelets, produced by Filmax for TV3 Spain. The show has subsequently been adapted for the German market, where it was a strong ratings success for RTL-owned channel Vox. Other Spanish companies making their mark both at home and abroad are Plano a Plano and Boomerang TV. The former produces El Principe, which has sold across Latin America as well as in Italy (Canale 5) and Portugal (RTP).

Boomerang TV has seen Motivos Personales and Los Misterios De Laura picked up as scripted formats in the US by ABC Studios and NBC/Warner Bros. It is also out in the international market with the thriller Plastic Sea. In other developments, Telefonica-owned Movistar TV is ramping up its original production activities. The company is currently in production on a thriller from Alberto Rodriguez called La Peste, set in 16th-century Seville. Looking ahead, it plans to produce eight-to-10 new series a year from 2017. Although Movistar will mainly be focused on Spanish-language TV series, it also wants to participate in English-language co-productions. This could make it a potential partner for the likes of Canal+ and Sky. Movistar’s increased investment in drama comes at a fascinating time in the Spanish TV sector, with Netflix and HBO both entering the market with streaming services. n

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ISRAEL

Israel first made its mark on the international market when BeTipul was reinvented for HBO US as In Treatment. Next, Ramzor was reimagined as Traffic Light for Fox US. But the real game-changer came when Keshet thriller Hatufim was adapted as Homeland for premium cable channel Showtime. Not only has Homeland been a hit, but the Hatufim format (usually referred to globally as Prisoners Of War) has also benefited, with sales to Russia, Colombia, Mexico, Turkey and South Korea.

Subsequently, the Israelis have achieved a steady stream of successes. One highlight was CBS’ decision to develop a US version of a show called Bnei Aruba, renamed Hostages. That decision also sparked interest in the original Hebrew show, which was licensed to BBC Four and Canal+. Underlining the international appeal of Israeli content, Ta Gordin (The Gordin Cell) was licensed as a format to Korean firm IMTV. Coming up to date, Israeli shows continue to generate a lot of interest as both completed shows and formats. HBO, for example, has been developing Wish, based on Beit Ha’Mishalot (House Of Wishes), and Neveilot, the story of two former soldiers who go on a rogue mission. The US version, to be written

by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, will centre on Vietnam War veterans.

Keshet International’s spy series False Flag is continuing the good work done by previous titles such as Prisoners Of War and In Treatment. In June 2015, the show was picked up by Fox International Channels for use in 127 countries. It is also being adapted

by Fox into English. At MIPTV, Keshet is introducing The Writer, a new show from Sayed Kashua (Arab Labour).

Latin America is especially interested in Israeli drama, with TNT Brazil announcing plans to remake Allenby, a sex-industry crime drama about a nightclub on Tel Aviv’s Allenby Street. Explaining why TNT picked up the show, Rogerio Gallo, movies and series vice-president for Turner International Brazil, says: “The similarities between Allenby Street in Israel and Rua Augusta [in Sao Paulo, Brazil] are magnificent.

Both are a part of each city’s history and the centre of a sizzling nightlife. These are great ingredients for a show.”

Also significant is a new deal between Keshet International and Televisa, under which the Mexico-based media giant will acquire rights to remake four scripted formats from Keshet over the next three years.

The Spanish-language adaptations will be broadcast in Mexico, with the US Hispanic network Univision also holding rights to air the series to its audience.

The first series to be commissioned under the deal is Loaded, which is also being remade in English for the UK’s Channel 4. n

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Drama S pecial Repor t Behind the scenes on series two of Gomorrah

KOREA

ITALY

Until recently, Italy has been an inward-looking drama market. But echoing trends around the world, it is now making its mark internationally. Rai Trade has sold its detective series Young Montalbano to broadcasters including the BBC, while Italian producer Wildside is making an English-language production entitled The Young Pope for Sky Atlantic Europe and HBO US. Global interest in Italy was confirmed in 2015 when Wildside was acquired by FremantleMedia. Subsequently, it has teamed up with Italy’s Fandango Productions to co-develop and co-produce an eight-part TV adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s acclaimed Neapolitan quartet of novels, set against the social and political backdrop of 1950s Naples. “We’re very privileged to be working with the superbly talented Ferrante and Fandango to bring this rich, gripping and highly addictive collection of novels to life,” says Wildside managing director Lorenzo Mieli.

“Ferrante’s works portray a fascinating and intense insight into past times and the stories and characters have become a literary obsession for many fans.”

Best of all, Italy has given us great crime dramas, including 1992 and Gomorrah, both of which have sold widely.

Beta Film managing director Moritz von Kruedener says a highlight for MIPTV is a new season of Gomorrah: “We’re really excited to bring it back to the market. The first series sold to hundreds of countries and now it’s back with a bigger budget and higher production values.”

Netflix’s activities in Italy include a new crime thriller called Suburra. n

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Korean drama is massively popular across Asia, with the biggest money paid by Japan and China. Last year, for example, China’s online network Sohu paid $2.4m for the rights to KBS hit show The Producers.

In a similar vein, Chinese video-sharing website Youku Tudou bought Pinocchio for $280,000 per episode.

Korean drama also sells well across other parts of Asia. Sensory Couple, for example, was sold to Taiwan, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Cambodia, among others. And increasingly it is travelling further afield. For instance, Jang-ho Seo, head of international sales and acquisitions at CJ E&M Corporation, says his company’s popular show Nine: Nine Times Time Travel has sold to 55 countries across Asia, Europe and the Americas.

International players are becoming interested. A few months back, Warner Bros. bought DramaFever, an online video company that specialises in streaming Korean shows and movies. And more recently, Keshet International picked up the international rights to Spy, a Korean show based on one of its own formats, MICE. The Korean version, set against the backdrop of the on-going conflict between North and South Korea, tells the story of a North Korean family that settles in the South and whose past comes back to haunt it. Keshet Studios’ head of business development Atar Dekel says she expects the show to sell well beyond Asia: “Being Korean the production values are excellent, which is great for us in terms of selling the finished tape.” n

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Drama S pecial Repor t BUSINESS TRENDS

THE ACTION BEHIND THE DRAMA

As global audiences remain gripped by some of the most compelling drama series ever to grace our screens, so the industry is re-shaping its approach to ideas, talent, finance and distribution to take full advantage of this exploding market. Andy Fry reports

Terry Brooks’ Shannara Chronicles which has been adapted for MTV by Sonar Entertainment

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Drama S pecial Repor t

F

OR THE TV industry, the demand for high-end drama continues to be the defining story of this decade. This is especially evident in the US cable market, where the number of shows being commissioned or acquired has doubled in the last few years. However, the buoyancy of the scripted genre is illustrated in many ways. With SVOD platforms, European payTV broadcasters and all manner of free-toair broadcasters on the hunt for signature shows, commissioning, co-production, format deals and good old-fashioned tape sales have gone into hyperdrive.

The question for content-owners and distributors, of course, is how to get a piece of the action. And it looks as though there are four key pillars that need to be put in place.

The first, says Sonar Entertainment senior vice-president, TV series, Jenna Glazier, is making sure you have access to “great ideas that really get noticed”. In Sonar’s case, this means it options a lot of novels — “around 50% of our development slate, in fact”. Examples include Terry Brooks’ Shannara Chronicles, which has been successfully adapted for MTV as Shannara, and Philipp Meyer’s epic The Son, which is now in pre-production with a view to transmission on AMC. Novels are significant for a couple of reasons, Glazier adds: “One is the in-built awareness they bring. The other is that they attract the best talent [the second of our four pillars]. It’s a combination of great ideas and talent that attracts the attention of networks.”

Glazier’s point is underlined by current book-based series such as HBO’s Game Of Thrones, Starz’s Outlander, Amazon’s The Man In The High Castle and AMC/BBC’s The Night Manager. However, the key take-out is not Sonar’s love of literary IP, but its emphasis on ideas with instant, in-built recognition value or a clear hallmark of approval. This is why the market is also awash with movie-toTV remakes (Limitless; Fargo), series reboots (The X-Files; Star Trek; Roots), instantly recognisable subjects (Tut; Victoria) and formats (Homeland; Humans).

Does this mean the death of the original idea? No — for two reasons. The first is that Europe’s public broadcasters still feel duty-bound to back original ideas (the outstanding example being DR in Denmark, with dramas including The Killing, The Legacy, Borgen and Follow The Money). The second is that original ideas can make it to market if they are backed by the right talent package. Who, for example, could say no to a Jane Campion-directed TV series (BBC/Sundance co-pro Top Of The Lake) or an original idea by bestselling writer Harlan Coben (StudioCanal’s The Five)?

“We have a show called Taboo in production that is based on an original idea from Tom Hardy and his father Chips,” Glazier says.

“When you factor in that this is being produced by Scott Free Productions, you can understand why this package appealed to the BBC and FX — the two key broadcaster partners for the show.”

The right talent involvement can lead to some surprising and uplifting results. A case in point is Icelandic thriller Trapped, produced

by RVK Studios from an idea by successful

Hollywood director Baltasar Kormakur (one of the principals at RVK Studios). Kormakur joked recently that Icelandic shows usually do not travel further than The Faroe Islands.

But his involvement in this gripping saga encouraged early commitments from the BBC, France TV, ZDF, SVT Sweden, YLE Finland, NRK Norway and DR1 Denmark. On top of all this, it was also picked up by The Weinstein Company in the US in a deal brokered

by Dynamic Television.

It is clear from the above that accessing talent — writers, actors and directors — is a key priority for the industry. While digital platforms like YouTube operate a kind of talent counter-culture, no idea is going anywhere in the TV world unless it has the right people attached. The industry’s response has been to buy the talent or lock it down to long-term contracts.

Again, examples abound. In the US, you can point to individual arrangements such as the decision by Netflix to sign up Orange Is The New Black-creator Jenji Kohan for three more seasons of its hit show. In the UK, it

Icelandic thriller Trapped, produced by RVK Studios

It’s a combination of great ideas and talent that attracts the attention of networks • 22 •

Jenna Glazier

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Drama S pecial Repor t

Photo: © Wildside, Sky, HBO, Canal Plus 2015

tage to us that we are also part of the same group as Canal+, which has also been moving more aggressively into international production.”

Wildside/Haut et Court’s The Young Pope.

is evident in the way leading scripted producers have been snapped up by the likes of NBCUniversal (Carnival), Sony Pictures Television (Left Bank), Endemol Shine (Tiger Aspect; Kudos) and StudioCanal (Red Production).

In fact, the indie acquisition trend is now evident in numerous markets as global players seek to position themselves at the forefront of the scripted business. FremantleMedia, for example, has recently added Wildside in Italy to a portfolio of companies that already includes UFA in Germany and Miso in the Nordic region. Wildside is now involved in high-profile co-productions, such as The Young Pope and a series based on Elena Ferrante’s acclaimed Neopolitan novels.

StudioCanal’s chief operating officer and chief financial officer, Romain Bessi, says his company’s migration into the TV business has also been built on the acquisition of “leading producers that are capable of making shows both in their domestic markets and internationally”. He adds: “We have invested in Tandem Communications [Pillars Of The Earth; Crossing Lines], Red [Happy Valley; The Five] and SAM [Rides Upon The Storm] and are now looking at opportunities in Southern Europe.”

For Bessi, StudioCanal’s ability to mix it in a highly competitive market is down to the strength of its content pipeline, its talent relationships and the distinctiveness of its DNA as a European-based company: “Because of our background as a film company, we have great relationships with talent that is now increasingly moving backwards and forwards between film and TV. We also have access to a lot of great IP in the shape of our film library and our family relationship with Universal Music Group. And in addition to our indie companies, it’s a real advan-

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With ideas and talent under control, the third pillar of any company’s international strategy inevitably involves project financing. While there is still a reasonably strong market for fully funded domestic drama, the kind of highend scripted shows that travel the world usually need partnerships to make them happen, says Liam Keelan, BBC Worldwide’s director of scripted content. “For us, War And Peace was an amazing project to be involved with and we want to do more like it. But if you want that kind of show, you have to get out there and find different partners.”

While co-productions inevitably raise complex questions about control of rights, that has not stopped a significant shift towards innovative, non-traditional collaborations, Keelan says. Last year, for example, BBC Worldwide came on board the Spanish-originated sci-fi series Refugees as a partner. “And now we are working with Lookout Point, Amazon and France Televisions on a period fashion series called The Collection,” Keelan adds. “I think that’s the kind of show that might not have been made a few years ago.”

Again, it is possible to identify several examples of how risk is being shared in order to deliver the kind of event programming that audiences crave. The Young Pope, for example, is a Wildside/Haut et Court production for Sky, HBO and Canal+, meaning it has, in effect, been set up as a UK, German, Italian, French and US co-production.

Elsewhere, supernatural crime drama Houdini And Doyle is a UK/Canadian co-production from Big Talk Productions and Shaftesbury that has been picked up by Fox US. Also operating a kind of cross-border/cross-platform business model is Federation Entertainment founder

DRAMATIC PARTNERSHIP INDEPENDENT producer Nevision and global production and distribution group Red Arrow Entertainment announced ahead of MIPTV that they have joined forces for a new co-development deal. The partnership will see the co-development of high-end drama for the international market. Two initial projects are already in advanced stages of development with producer Sharon Bloom (Silent Witness): Post One, a high-concept series written by Gregory Edmont (The Secret Adventure Of Jules Verne, Sweet Medicine); and Geneva, a spy thriller written by Matt Thorne (8 Minutes Idle). Both series will be produced by Nevision and distributed internationally by Red Arrow International. n

Drama S pecial Repor t Pascal Breton. “Our slate consists of Marseille, a show for Netflix; Lucky Luciano, a co-production with Italian broadcaster Mediaset; and Victor, an English-language procedural we are developing with TF1 in France and TMG in Germany,” he says. “I think the opportunity for high-end drama is here for a few more years and we need to create partnerships to take advantage of the current level of demand.”

Tied into the issue of financing is the fourth pillar — how you ensure access to market for your IP. An obvious way to do this is to put your show in the hands of one of the major distributors, which have excellent contacts with buyers and are keen to have a broad portfolio of scripted shows.

Endemol Shine International CEO Cathy Payne, for example, says her company’s catalogue comprises both in-house and third-party shows from numerous parts of the world: “We’re well-known for our UK dramas like Broadchurch, Peaky Blinders and Grantchester, but we also have titles from the US [Kingdom], Turkey [Intersection], Israel [Mossad] and Australia [Peter Allen: Not The Boy Next Door], among others. One of our big launches at MIPTV is the Swedish crime drama Spring Tide, which launched on SVT.” The access-to-market pillar is not, however, just about being part of a strong catalogue. “It’s about knowing the best way to bring your show to the international market,” Payne says. “The diverse portfolio we’ve built is in response to what buyers are looking for. But it might be that your show stands a better chance in some territories as a format, so that’s always an additional option.”

If there are four noteworthy trends under the access-to-market heading, it is these. The first is that content-owners do not necessarily have to entrust the heavy-lifting on their shows to distributors. Increasingly,

PROMOTING CHINESE TALENT BEIJING-based Capital Radio & TV Program Producers Association (BBPA), that brings together China’s most influential TV and film production companies, is at MIPTV this year.

The BBPA boasts the best screenwriters, directors and stars as well as production teams. TV dramas and films produced by its member companies occupy a major share of primetime. Key elements of the association’s mission are to facilitate the development of the production industry across platforms and to promote co-operation between Chinese TV and film and overseas counterparts.

As part of this strategy the BBPA organises the Beijing TV Program Market and Exhibition, a platform for co-operation and communication between producers and distributors. n

Keshet Studios’ latest hit show False Flag

it is also possible to sell multi-territory rights to Netflix, Amazon or the big cable-TV brands. Keshet Studios’ head of business development, Atar Dekel, says this is what her company did with its latest hit show False Flag: “Fox International Channels acquired the original show for its channels around the world and we also did a deal for them to make an English-language version of the show.”

The second, which is related to the first, is the attempt by leading companies to run end-to-end operations that allow them to protect and manage IP. A&E Studios, which is making a new series of Vikings and a show called Six, is an example of a company setting itself up at the front end of the production process. StudioCanal’s new TV distribution operation is an example of a company ensuring it has the ability to sell into the market.

The third is that more companies are looking to produce in the English-language, even if it is not their first language. While there has clearly been an upturn in buyer interest in non-English shows, the general message from the market is that English shows still have greater export potential, particularly if you aspire to break into North America. After the success of Canal+’s Versailles, for example, several European players have started developing shows along these lines.

Something analogous is happening in the Americas, where Televisa is starting to make English-language shows — for example Gran Hotel — and Brazilian media giant Globo has recently moved into Spanish-language production.

The last point is that the balance of demand is shifting away from long-running procedurals to mini-series and serials, says BBC Worldwide’s Keelan. So ideas that may not have been looked at a few years ago now have the potential to make their mark internationally.

How companies construct these four pillars depends on their existing strengths and their ambitions. But they are all at it. Entertainment

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FROM BOOK TO SCREEN INTERNATIONAL bestselling author Harlan Coben announced ahead of MIPTV that he is launching his own independent production company, in partnership with the UK’s Red Production Company. Coben will be joint CEO alongside Red founder Nicola Shindler with StudioCanal handling international distribution of the original content. Final Twist Productions, which will be based in the US, will develop contemporary, thrilling drama for American broadcast networks. The new company is already in development on a major returning drama series, Six Years, adapted from Coben’s bestselling novel of the same name. “Nicola and I had such a terrific experience creating The Five for Sky One. I couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve made,” Harlan Coben says. “Final Twist Productions will take our American-British teamwork to the next level by bringing Nicola’s daring new outlook and producing style to the USA.” n

Swedish crime drama Spring Tide

One Television president of global scripted programming, Pancho Mansfield, says his company’s pursuit of ideas and talent has led it to build a global network. “We have a very robust business in Canada and now we have offices in LA, Toronto, Sydney and London that are all looking for original IP and formats, as well as talking to writers and producers,” he adds. “That’s how we got involved with Frank Spotnitz, TF1 and Shaw Media on the drama Ransom, and why we have a first-look deal with Eleven Film in the UK, which has led to productions such as Channel 4’s Glue.”

Mansfield’s colleague, executive vice-president of global productions, Carrie Stein, echoes Keelan’s point about partnerships: “With budgets as high as $2.5-$3m an hour, TV drama has started to resemble the indie film model, with multiple partners. The challenge is not to have so many partners it affects the creative.” Echoing Glazier, she stresses the importance of finding “the best underlying material and packaging it properly, because that improves the odds.”

Keshet’s Dekel says her company is hunting down opportunities in every major market. Aside from the False Flag deal, she says: “We have launched Keshet Studios in the US and have a partnership with Televisa in Latin America to create local scripted shows based on our content.

In the UK, the BBC is adapting our series The A Word,

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while Channel 4 is adapting Loaded. In India, we have just announced there will be a local version of Prisoners Of War [already adapted as Homeland in the US by Fox].

In addition, we have an Asian operation that is now representing third-party Korean scripted content. At MIPTV, we have the international rights, excluding China, Hong Kong and Macau, to a new romcom from Hyundai Media called You Will Love Me.” To date, Keshet’s international growth has been driven by the prolific output of its Israeli talent pool. But Dekel sees potential for the company to move into the English-language co-production game. Explaining why the Israelis have had such an impact, she says: “We’re very adaptable. We have a startup mentality. And we have a clear, authentic voice that people tune into.”

This is an important point, because it is vital to stress that our four pillars need a strong foundation if they are to stay solid — and that foundation is the creative vision that drives a project. DR head of fiction Piv Bernth is often quizzed about this with regard to her company’s run of international success. Asked how DR is responding to the global market, she says: “Mostly, we stick to what we’ve done. If we try to do what others are doing it will all wrap up in a couple of years. We need to stay focused on the local audience. If we tell complex and interesting stories set in our own cultural background, then maybe they will become universal.” n

Drama S pecial Repor t WILD BUNCH TV

ENABLERS, MATCHMAKERS, PACKAGERS W

ILD Bunch is a pan-European company active in the acquisition, co-production and sale of movies and TV series, with a library of more than 2,200 titles. Having established itself in the feature-film market with titles including Fahrenheit 9/11, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, The Artist and Dheepan, the company burst on to the TV scene in October 2015 with the launch of Wild Bunch TV. Carole Baraton, head of Wild Bunch TV, and Diana Bartha, in charge of development and TV sales say: “We launched Wild Bunch TV with the objective of expanding our activities to co-production and the distribution of TV series for the international market. It was a totally natural expansion for Wild Bunch, taking advantage of its expertise in identifying projects and its proximity with talent, and of its competences in international financing, and know-how in distribution and international sales. Through our pan-European offices, we are well positioned to supply, spot and finance original distinctive fiction programming for major broadcasters in their domestic markets.”

In terms of projects, Baraton says: “Medici: Masters Of Florence is very typical of what we want to do — a European series created by internationally renowned showrunner Frank Spotnitz with an international flavour and great production value. It is an eight-part English-speaking Italian series about the rise of the Medici family and the Italian Renaissance, with a €24m budget.” Created by Frank Spotnitz and Nicholas Meyer, Medici: Masters Of Florence features Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man) and Richard Madden (Game Of Thrones). It is directed by Sergio Mimi-

ca-Gezzan (The Pillars Of The Earth). The series is one of the 12 new series selected for the MIPDrama Screenings.

Also on the Wild Bunch TV slate is a Spanish series Four Seasons In Havana, “an adaptation of the superb novels from Leonardo Padura”, Bartha says. “Introducing great characters, super-attractive locations [it is entirely shot in Cuba], solid stories with torrid atmosphere — very Wild Bunch! A Caribbean Noir series, it introduces Mario Conde’s investigations in the crumbling Havana of the 1990s.”

Baraton and Bartha say that the current content boom is being driven by a powerful alliance of creative and production talent: “The renaissance of European fiction has been possible through people like us — enablers, matchmakers, European packagers.

Distributors with a strong local presence

A major trend in scripted content is the increasingly close co-operation between the film and TV businesses. One company that illustrates the point neatly is French powerhouse Wild Bunch, writes Andy Fry have become catalysts and are now playing a decisive role in initiating and shaping great content. Moreover, producers are not scared of telling very locally grounded stories, which have not only been gathering solid audiences in their own markets but curiosity from international buyers as well.”

In terms of Wild Bunch TV’s positioning, they say: “Our first two series are perfectly representative of our editorial line which we want to be eclectic anyway. Our success relies on differentiation, which will give the company competitive advantages as a next-generation content-provider and producer for large niches. Our leitmotiv is a definite, narrow line-up, yet ambitious and powerful. We want to permanently offer a focused portfolio to the market, consistent with the Wild Bunch brand and backed by the 15-year expertise of the group.” n

Medici: Masters Of Florence. Photo: Fabio Iovino

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THE JURY SPEAKS The six MIPDrama Screenings jury members spoke to Julian Newby on the eve of the event, about their craft and about the Golden Age of TV drama

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HE MIPDRAMA Screenings Selection Jury members are: from Spain, Teresa Fernandez-Valdes and Ramon Campos, showrunners for a number of hits including The Refugees, Velvet and Gran Hotel; from the US, Chris Long, director and executive producer of The Americans and The Mentalist; from Denmark, Soren Sveistrup, creator and writer of The Killing; from Germany, Anna Winger, writer and co-creator of Deutschland 83; and from the UK Sarah Phelps, writer and executive producer for And Then There Were None and whose credits also include Casual Vacancy and Great Expectations.

Sarah Phelps is best known for adapting works of literature for television — recent hits include Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations and JK Rowling’s Casual Vacancy. Speaking about the writing process, she says: “You can only write what you feel passionately

about. Once you start on a script, you’re going to be going without sleep, you’re going to be drinking way too much, you’re going to be smoking way too much, so what you write better be bloody good. If you’re laughing and crying as you type, that’s a good sign. It’s magic then.”

Anna Winger — who is currently enjoying worldwide success with Deutschland 83, which she co-created with her husband Joerg — says she finds her inspiration in her fellow writers. “When I see other people around the world pushing the limits of what’s possible in a TV series — in subject matter, storytelling and artistic execution — I am simply inspired.” She adds: “Creativity is contagious.” And Winger believes the golden age of TV drama we are currently experiencing is not a passing trend. “I think the globalisation of TV drama is just beginning, both in terms

“There are so many intelligent, talented people in the TV business now” • 28 •

of creative origin and potential audience.

Maybe access needs to be streamlined, but great stories are borderless. It’s a really exciting time to be writing in television.”

Soren Sveistrup says the worldwide explosion in quality TV drama is down to the creators. “There are so many intelligent, talented people in the TV business now, directing writing and acting, that’s really the main reason why it’s so hot at the moment.” And he praises the networks around the world for breaking the TV drama mould. “Writers and directors and producers have now proved that you can do something very, very good with a TV show, which wasn’t the perception 10 or 20 years ago. Producers and networks today have much more courage; everyone is more ambitious and they don’t just stick to the old recipes — setting a drama in a police station or a law firm and building everything

Soren Sveistrup

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Clockwise from top left: Ramon Campos, Teresa Fernandez-Valdez, Chris Long, Anna Winger. Soren Sveistrup and Sarah Phelps

written character piece that you know you’re only going to be involved in for eight to 10 months, which is like doing a movie.” around that. Today you have to challenge the whole concept. And producers and networks have realised this and I think they deserve a lot of credit too because they take really big chances.”

For Chris Long, the changing TV landscape has been a contributor to the worldwide explosion in quality TV drama. “Drama has always been important to networks, but certainly the advent of all these new platforms and ways of viewing them has created more of an audience — an audience that doesn’t feel like it has to have appointment viewing in their busy lives so they feel they can catch up and watch these things when they want to.”

Another contributor is the flexibility that talent now has when taking on a new project. “In the old days when [the US] had just three or four networks, when they started a TV pilot, even before the actor had auditioned for the network, they had to sign a seven-year contract and I think that became very unattractive for a number of actors,” Long says. “Now you can go out on an Amazon show, or an FX show and it’s only 13 episodes or it’s a mini-series and they don’t feel they have to look seven years ahead to work on one project. And it’s not just the actors, but that’s definitely why we’ve attracted film people — actors, writers, directors — into the TV business. I think it’s very enticing to have a beautifully

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Teresa Fernandez-Valdez says the internationalisation of TV drama is down to the disruption of the traditional broadcast networks. “I feel that all countries have always had good stories to tell and maybe before you had little opportunity to watch them,” she says. “Now with all these big platforms the shows are traveling better and you can follow series it was impossible to see before.”

“Today so many more countries are working hard to produce quality drama and tell their stories,” Ramon Campos adds. “And we can watch series from all over the world and that is a very important influence on the creators — the writers, directors and actors. It raises standards for the whole world.”

Campos and Fernandez-Valdez said that the MIPDrama Screenings is a welcome addition to the industry calendar.

“We have always felt that we needed an event like this in Europe. Up until now we haven’t had the platform from which to share what we are creating, or to show how we are evolving. Now to have this opportunity is going to be very interesting and inspiring, and it will help us to be stronger.” n

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TWELVE OF THE BEST MIPDRAMA SCREENINGS

New dramas were submitted from all over the world for the chance to be shown at the inaugural MIPDrama Screenings. Here we highlight the 12 that were selected for screening to international buyers and press for the first time

THE A WORD is the story of the Hughes family, who work and love and fight like every other family — until their youngest son is diagnosed with autism and suddenly they don’t feel like every other family anymore. The A Word is a funny and thought-provoking series about parenthood and childhood.

The series’ writer Peter Bowker was a teacher of children with learning difficulties before he switched to screenwriting, so has some experience of the subject. “The thing that most engaged me was at the heart of this drama is a family who can’t communicate, who at their heart have a child who by definition has trouble communicating and that struck me as rich dramatic territory. Then I watched the original Israeli series [Keshet and July August Productions series Yellow Peppers] and used that as a springboard to inspire my own take on the whole situation, so that’s how it began.”

The 6 x 60 mins series is directed by Peter Cattaneo, Dominic Leclerc and Susan Tully and produced by Fifty Fathoms and Keshet UK. The series went to air on BBC1 on March 22. n

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BORDERTOWN, features chief investigator Kari Sorjonen, his wife — who is recovering from illness — and teenage daughter who move to a small town to enjoy a more peaceful life. But the idyllic life they had hoped for is far from the reality of this border town between Finland and Russia. As the new police chief, Sorjonen has to use his brilliant mind and exceptional deductive skills to investigate several murder cases along with a serial killer who is tormenting the community. But he will soon discover that these crimes are connected not only to each other, but also to his family.

The series is produced by Finland’s Fisher King and France’s Federation Entertainment for YLE — Federation also distributes. Combining Nordic Noir police procedural and family drama, the series is described by Federation’s Pascal Breton as “a cross between Millennium and the much older Twin Peaks in terms of ambition and atmosphere”. The 11 x 52 mins series is written by Miikko Oikkonen, Matti Laine, Atro Lahtela, Antti Pesonen and directed by Oikkonen, Jyri Kahonen and Juuso Syrja. Broadcast is scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year. n BODO is a big-budget series set in the Twenties and Thirties. Produced by Telewizja Polska and Akson Studio, it’s the biggest production to come from Polish public television in many years. The series tells the story of Eugeniusz Bodo, Poland’s most popular cinema and cabaret star of the inter-war period. An actor, director, producer, businessman and celebrity, Bodo was the subject of many scandals, adored by women and the hero of many men.

The 13 x 55 mins series follows Bodo’s path to fame, recreates many of the performances that made him a star and goes inside the workings of the entertainment industry of the time. It’s a story of tragedy, love and betrayal — and his inexplicable death which today remains a mystery.

Shot in over 300 locations with a cast of 400 and 400 extras, Bodo promises a “plethora of stars, excellent screen creations, unforgettable interwar period hits in surprising arrangements, spectacular choreography and splendid film settings”.

Writers are Doman Nowakowski and Piotr Derewenda; Michał Kwiecinski and Michał Rosa direct and Antoni Krolikowski stars as Bodo.

The series began broadcasting on TVP1 on March 6 of this year. n

I KNOW WHO YOU ARE opens with a man in his mid-fifties walking down a desolate highway. From his ripped clothes and injured face it seems he has had an accident, but he can’t remember who he is or how he got there. He has no identification on him, no cell phone or anything that can identify him. He has total amnesia.

Produced by Arca Audiovisual, part of the Filmax Group, the series is about justice and questions whether the big decisions we make in life are determined by our heads or our hearts. This is not a series that gives its viewers lots of answers, but it will open the door to many questions.

The Spanish-language 10 x 70 mins thriller is produced by Arca Audiovisual and distributed by Filmax International and Mediaset.

Head writer is Ivan Mercade and director is Pau Freixas. At press time the transmission date was still to be announced. n

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KU’DAMM 56 – REBEL WITH A CAUSE is set in 1956 in a Berlin dance school called

Galant. The school upholds traditional values and the young women attending are expected to behave in the appropriate manner. Except that outside in the real world times are changing. Caterina Schollack, owner of the school and mother of three daughters, tries to integrate herself and her daughters into a hierarchically structured society. Two of her daughters seem to go along with their mother’s wishes: Helga has married a lawyer; nurse Eva is hoping to marry a professor.

But Monika, the middle of the three daughters has discovered rock ‘n’ roll. At a time when a woman’s place was in the home to serve the needs of her husband, Ku’Damm – Rebel With A Cause tells the stories of women searching for a new female identity, and their demand for equal rights in a society where obedience was predominant — but rebelliousness could not be contained.

The 3 x 90 mins series is written by Annette Hess and directed by Sven Bohse. It’s produced by UFA Fiction, distributor is ZDF Enterprises and broadcast started on ZDF, March 20. n

MATHILDE follows the story of Nich-

olas, the future heir to Russian throne and Mathilde, a world-famous ballerina. Their affair turns into a whirlwind romance which is not welcome in the court.

When the royal train is involved in a horrific accident Nicholas’ father Alexander the Third saves his family, but at a terrible cost to his own health. As the heir to the Russian throne, Nicholas understands that his personal freedom will die along with the death of his father.

The widowed Empress does not wait for the end of mourning and prepares the marriage of Nicholas to Alix of Hesse, daughter of a German duke. Meanwhile a love affair that could have changed the history of Russia is suddenly over.

Produced by Russia’s Rock Films Studio, the lavish series is one the biggest TV productions to come out of Russia since Sergey Bondarchuk’s War And Peace. It features Assumption Cathedral where Russian emperors were crowned, magnificent imperial palaces and the opulent interiors of the Mariinsky and the Bolshoi. In all some 17 tons of fabric was used to make over 7,000 costumes.

The 4 x 52 mins series is written by Alexan-

der Terekhov and directed by Alexey Uchitel.

Broadcast is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2017 on Channel One Russia. n

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MEDICI: MASTERS OF FLORENCE follows the Medici

family’s ascent from simple merchants to redoubtable power brokers, sparking an economic and cultural revolution. Their patriarch Giovanni de Medici is murdered in mysterious circumstances. His sons Cosimo and Lorenzo are forced to confront enemies plotting to remove the Medici from power. Shot in Tuscany, this family saga lays out the foundations of the most profound financial, artistic and scientific awakening the world has ever known: the Renaissance.

“The Medici came to power at a time of great social and economic inequality,” says the series’ writer Frank Spotnitz. “They were great disrupters. Their banking practices led to the creation of a middle class, making them unimaginably wealthy. The Medici in turn used their vast power and resources to challenge traditional thinking, ushering in a new era of revolutionary art and science such as the world had never seen. It’s a powerful story that resonates even now.”

The 8 x 50 mins series is produced by Italy’s Lux Vide and the UK’s Big Light Productions. Writers are Nicholas Meyer and Frank Spotnitz, director is Sergio Mimica-Gezzan. The series is distributed by Wild Bunch TV and transmission on Italy’s RAI is due in the fourth quarter of this year. n

RAMONA is a 12-part series about two young sisters, Ramona and

PUBLIC ENEMY features Guy Beranger who is public enemy

number one and at the end of his prison sentence. His release on parole into the custody of Vielsart Abbey leads to public outcry throughout the country, particularly in the small village of Vielsart. Lucas, a young monk, wants to believe in Beranger’s redemption. Then a young girl disappears on the outskirts of the abbey. Chloe, a young inspector based in Brussels, is assigned to the investigation that brings her face-to-face with the fears and secrets of the people of this small village.

Confronted by a mob thirsty for justice and a brotherhood prepared to preserve the reputation of their abbey at all costs, Lucas and Chloe have to join forces in order to re-establish order and truth.

The 10 x 60 mins series asks important questions about what we do with people we consider monsters and how to serve justice. It questions the place that faith and cults have in today’s society and to what extent the media influences our opinions.

Producers are Belgium’s Playtime Films and Entre Chien et Loup; writers are Antoine Bours, Gilles de Voghel, Matthieu Frances and Christopher Yates; and Matthieu Frances and Gary Seghers direct.

Distributor is Zodiak Rights; the series goes to air on RTBF Belgium in May. n

Helga, who emigrate from the countryside to Santiago, Chile, where they start a clandestine business selling wine in a camp that is being built on the outskirts of the city. Business booms and they decide to live there along with Carmen, a prostitute who teaches them how to survive in a world that is new to them.

The three women become involved in a political movement that promotes the takeover of these grounds and promises to get them out of poverty. To survive, they wash clothes by day and dance in nightclubs by night. And they fall in love, which brings them both joy and pain.

The characters come from a violent system, particularly for women, who often have no way out. They rebel against their fate and move to the city in search of a better future.

The 12 x 42 mins series is written by Guillermo Calderon with co-writers Andres Wood, Julio Jorquera, Daniel Villalobos and Cecilia Ruz. Andres Wood, Julio Jorquera and Marcos Sanchez direct in collaboration with Calderon. The producer is Chile’s Wood Producciones and distributor is Fly Content. n

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THE SECRET begins in a picturesque seaside town in 1991. Two

bodies lie dead in a carbon-monoxide-filled car. Nurse Lesley Howell and police officer Trevor Buchanan have apparently taken their own lives.

The series tells the true story of Hazel Buchanan and Colin Howell who met at their local Baptist Church in Coleraine, Northern Ireland and embarked upon a passionate and destructive affair, which climaxed in a plot to commit the perfect murder, killing both their partners, Lesley and Trevor, and making it look like a suicide pact.

The killers’ later separate, remarry and prosper. As a series of disasters befalls Howell, believing that he is being punished by God, he finally confesses his crimes to the horrified elders of his church.

Executive producer of the 4 x 60 mins series Mark Redhead said: “This is the story of an audacious and wicked crime. It tells us something very surprising and revealing about the dark side of human nature.”

Produced by Hat Trick Productions in association with Northern Ireland Screen, The Secret is written by Stuart Urban and directed by Nick Murphy. Broadcaster is ITV1 with a possible transmission date of January 2017. n

VICTORIA is an eight-part drama that follows the early life of Britain’s Queen Victoria from her accession to the throne at the age of 18 through to her marriage to Prince Albert. Victoria is produced by Mammoth Screen and Masterpiece and the series is created and written by acclaimed novelist Daisy Goodwin, in her screenwriting debut.

Directed by Tom Vaughan, Sandra Goldbacher and Oliver Hughes, episode one of Victoria runs to 90 minutes and is followed by seven onehour episodes.

Production companies are Mammoth Screen and Masterpiece, and distributor is ITV Studios Global Entertainment. Broadcast on the UK’s ITV and PBS in the US is set for later this year. n

SECTION ZERO is a dark, edgy and violent political, sci-fi

thriller from writer and director Olivier Marchal. Set in the near future, multi-national corporations are Europe’s new leaders. One of the most powerful, Promethee, wants to replace the police force with their own private militias, the Black Squad.

Following the shooting of his daughter an idealistic law enforcement officer, Sirius Becker, aligns himself with veteran cop Franck Varnove.

Sirius takes charge of Franck’s clandestine, elite squadron, Section Zero, to battle these dark, violent militias, promising a return to traditional law enforcement.

In common with writer-director and ex-cop Marchal’s other work on feature films 36 Quai des Orfevres and MR 73, and the Braquo series on Canal+, Section Zero is dark, edgy, violent, sexy and with deeply complex and ambiguous characters.

Producers of the 8 x 60 mins series are EuropaCorp Television, Bad Company and Umedia; distributor is StudioCanal; the series launches on Canal+ on April 4. n

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LOOKS DO MATTER LOCATIONS

One result of the worldwide boom in television drama is that we are now seeing a wide variety of locations — and languages — on our screens.

The look of a series these days is as important as the plot and the players. Julian Newby reports

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HERE was a time when we didn’t pay too much attention to the backdrop of a TV drama. A hit series from a former golden age, M*A*S*H, was set in Korea but was filmed in Malibu. Today, however, the discerning, bingeing audiences for high-end TV drama want — and get — authenticity. The bleak, cold north for Nordic Noir; the mystical, detached New Mexico for Breaking Bad; the ruthless backdrops of Colombia for Narcos; the quiet suburbs of Northern France for The Missing.

And there are other reasons why productions travel in this golden age of TV drama. Money, for example. Keshet’s Prisoners Of War started out in Israel, was re-versioned as Homeland for Showtime in the US and shot in Charlotte, North Carolina, before moving to Berlin via South Africa.

The series traveled initially because the

content was so good that the US wanted its own version. It started its new life in Charlotte North Carolina, taking advantage of a state tax credit for film and television productions. After three seasons this incentive was downgraded to a discretionary grant capped at $10m, so the show moved to South Africa to take advantage of a 20% tax rebate on offer to big-budget productions from overseas.

Season five moved to Germany, using Studio Babelsberg near Berlin as a base. As the first US series to shoot entirely in the country, Homeland received support from the local Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg film fund.

Berlin was key to the plot of course, but the money helped too.

In 2014 LA-based counter-terrorism actiondrama 24 moved from Hollywood to London for 12 episodes after eight successful

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seasons in the US. The show switched to the UK capital to take advantage of the country’s High-end TV Tax Relief for scripted television projects with a minimum expenditure of £1m per broadcast hour. Introduced in April 2013, the incentive has proved such a success that by 2015 the UK had reported its most active year ever in terms of production hours.

And others have followed. Best-selling American thriller writer Harlan Coben — most of whose novels have been firmly set in the suburbs of New Jersey — has set his first-ever TV series, The Five, in Liverpool in the North of England. And the series has enjoyed the same tax benefits as Fox’s 24.

Liverpool is not named in The Five — echoing the suburban anonymity that New Jersey offers Coben’s many multi-million-selling novels. The series is for Sky 1 in the UK, who

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The Embassy (Beta Film)

approached Red Production Company requesting a longform thriller. Red contacted Coben and he didn’t have to be persuaded.

“A lot of his novels are set in New Jersey so we wanted to emulate that over here,” The Five producer Karen Lewis says. “So we looked at Bristol, Cardiff, Chester and Manchester but they were all very recognisable. Then we went to Liverpool and it just seemed to fit the bill for us.”

Coben set The Five in and around the fictitious English town of Westbridge. “When Red came over here the first time, I drove them around and showed them the New Jersey places that I wanted them to find British counterparts for,” Coben says. “I drove them to the places that I saw in my head as the American versions of where the story takes place and then it was their job to go [back to the UK] and find them. Almost each one lived up to or exceeded my expectations.”

Liverpool “had everything” for Coben. “There’s strange brick, there’s stone, there’s wood, there are parks, it has its own unique style and yet it’s universal, so there’s nothing you look at and think ‘Wow, that could only be in Liverpool!’,” Coben said. “It’s a really interesting place to film.”

For Fortitude, a commission for Sky Atlantic written by

Simon Donald and produced by Fifty Fathoms and Tiger Aspect Productions, the location was central to the plot.

The second series is currently in production and is set for simulcast across Sky’s European territories later this year.

The fictitious town of Fortitude is based on Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, a base for Arctic exploration. “I was keen to find a place where I could set a dark, twisted thriller that was unlike any location we’d seen recently — and that took us right up into the Arctic Circle,” Donald says. “I also wanted to write something set in a very small, pressure-cooker community where people are left to their own devices and have to sort things out themselves when something goes wrong. And finally, I wanted something that moved into a different thematic area from a traditional police procedural; I wanted to go into some dark, urgent, realworld science and all of that ended up being Fortitude.”

Having done a considerable amount of research on location in the Arctic — along with Fifty Fathoms founder Patrick Spence — learning how people cope with the extreme weather conditions in the area, Donald decided to look for somewhere that could double for Svalbad but with a less severe climate and “without it feeling noticeably like another country”. They settled on Reyoafjprour in Iceland and once production was under

“Liverpool has its own unique style and yet it’s universal’” • 37 •

Harlan Coben

Drama S pecial Repor t

time since records began, the area was experiencing a freak drought. Snow and ice were crucial to the plot and there was little or none. “So we had to bring [fake] snow to Iceland with us — from London — and re-lay it across our town and mountainsides for take-after-take,” Spence says. “This was not how we had hoped to be working.

But the crew — British and Icelandic, working side by side — were tireless as well as talented.”

Leila Bekhti takes aim in Midnight Sun

way, cast and crew commuted between there and the UK, where most of the interiors were shot – once again enabling the production to benefit from the UK’s Highend TV Tax Relief.

And the UK ended up offering more than just interiors and money. Location filming was scheduled over six weeks during the Icelandic winter when, for the first

For The Embassy, which distributor Beta Film premieres at MIPTV this year, Spain and Thailand are the key locations. Spain because producer Bambu Producciones is Spanish and Thailand — well, partly because it is “a nice place”, according to Bambu’s Teresa Fernandez-Valdes, showrunner on The Embassy alongside Ramon Campos.

But more important was the plot. Embassy is essentially about corruption and its creators needed a vehicle to enable the audience to distinguish fact from fiction.

“To talk about corruption in Spain is really hard because politics does get mixed-up in some of the cases of corruption here,” Fernandez-Valdez says. “So we decided to choose an embassy outside of our country to give us more freedom to talk about corruption. There are real examples of corruption in Spain in the series but we recreate them in an imaginary place so that we are not pointing the finger at any one specific person.”

A second unit went to Thailand where most of the exteriors were shot, while interiors and some exteriors were shot in Spain, enabling the production to benefit from a 15% reduction in expenditure incurred by a production which

“We decided to choose an embassy outside of our country to give us more freedom to talk about corruption” Iceland is Norway in Fortitude

• 38 •

Teresa Fernandez-Valdez

Drama S pecial Repor t

Harlan Coben’s The Five

spends a minimum of €1m on Spanish soil.

In Midnight Sun, Kahina Zadi (Leila Bekhti), a French police officer, travels to Kiruna, a small mining community in remote Lapland in northern Sweden, to investigate a brutal murder of a French citizen. With the help of Anders Harnesk (Gustaf Hammarsten), a Swedish district attorney and a member of the Sami, an ancient, indigenous tribe of Scandinavia, they are faced with new killings and the murder turns out to be the first of many. Kahina and Anders come to realise that behind the killings is a 10-year-old secret conspiracy involving many of the town’s inhabitants.

Originating broadcasters for the series are Canal+ and SVT and its creators are Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein, the team behind The Bridge. Production companies are Sweden’s Nice Drama and France’s Atlantique Productions.

The location was crucial to the making of the series, according to Nice Productions’ Stefan Baron. “Lapland has a very singular and specific atmosphere so it will give the show a very different kind of USP,” Baron says.

“It was central to the very concept of the show and we knew that from the very beginning. It was very interesting to show a part of Sweden that hasn’t been seen on TV and make it a character in the show.”

Kiruna is the most northern town in Sweden, close to the Norwegian border. “The indigenous people there,

the Samis, are people you don’t meet that much in TV series,” Baron said. “So the idea of the show was also to use this population as part of the story. So it’s not only about Lapland, it’s also about prejudice and intolerance and racism which is an interesting backdrop to our thriller.

Those things are very obvious in that part of Sweden, it has a history of violence and prejudice.”

The global audience for TV drama in this golden age shows a remarkable tolerance towards subtitles and multilingual scripts, both elements that would have made most shows unsellable on the international market 10 or 15 years ago. Five languages feature in Midnight Sun. “Our main characters are Swedish and French so they speak English together,” Baron says. “You also hear Swedish and French and also Sami, which is the language of the indigenous people up north. And we also have some Arabic because our French character has an Arabic background.”

Canal+ and SVT provided the finance for the series and while there are no tax incentives in Sweden, there are regional funds available based on local expenditure from which the series benefitted. On the French side there was also funding available from the Centre national du cinema et de l’image animee, the CNC. At press time the series was in post-production and broadcast on SVT and Canal+ is due in the fourth quarter of this year. Distributor is StudioCanal. n

• 39 •

Photo: © Nick Briggs

Drama S pecial Repor t

Sarah Parish as Marjorie Sutter and Poppy Corby-Tuech as Dominique, in The Collection

GUILTY PLEASURES Wales stands-in for Paris in The Collection, a new drama about haute couture set after WWII. Julian Newby visited the Welsh town of Port Talbot where the series is being produced

T

HE COLLECTION is a family saga set in the world of French haute couture after WWII. Written and created by showrunner Oliver Goldstick — whose hits include Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives and Pretty Little Liars — the series launches exclusively on Amazon Prime in

the UK later this year. It was commissioned

by BBC Worldwide (BBCWW) and France Televisions for France 3. The Collection is the first scripted co-production for France Televisions and is produced by Lookout Point and Artis Pictures Production, with Federation Entertainment and MFP.

• 40 •

The authentic Paris sets have been built inside a disused Ford car factory in the Welsh town of Port Talbot. The makeshift studio was previously used for Da Vinci’s Demons, the first-ever collaboration between Starz and BBCWW. The idea for The Collection came from pro-

Drama S pecial Repor t “I thought ‘Oh my God, how are we going to do this, what is this going to look like?’” ducer Kate Croft, who for some time had harboured a wish to work with Goldstick.

Research into WWII led her to a series of articles on the ateliers and designers of the period “and I thought, ‘There’s gold dust in there’”, Croft says. “So I wrote up a page just called Couture, contacted Oliver and said, ‘You’re probably sick to death of doing fashion-industry shows but if I don’t mention this to you now I will kick myself.”

Goldstick was wary of creating a story purely about fashion and introduced the idea of turning it into a family saga. Lookout Point CEO Simon Vaughan says that as the story developed it took on a strong moral dimension. Paris couture survived WWII and began to thrive again soon afterwards. ”Just to have survived, let alone to survive and thrive, puts you into an ambiguous place post-war,” Vaughan says. “To have lived at all made you feel guilty, to have lived and thrived made you potentially a war criminal.”

It was the moral tension that inspired Goldstick as he set about researching and developing the story. “I realised that some of the ateliers and couturiers did not close down during the war and that they actually served the German occupiers. And their dirty little secret is that some of them turned more profits during the occupation than they did in the preceding years — it was a depression in the Thirties in France as much as it was in America,” Goldstick says. “I was fascinated by the stories I read. For example within one family you had one brother working essentially as a collaborator and another brother was a major member of the Resistance.”

By the time he came to The Collection, Goldstick had a considerable understanding of the fashion world, having worked on three fashion-themed series in quick succession — Ugly Betty, Pretty Little Liars and Lipstick Jungle. “In Lipstick Jungle one of the characters was a fashion designer, so when I took on that job I did a lot of research about the New York fashion world,” he says. “I think what clicked wasn’t the fashion, it was fashion as a metaphor for reinvention. Because fashion is about transformation, it’s about the ugly duckling that becomes a swan. In a way

it can be about survival, whether people truly had to reinvent themselves after years of oppression and repression.”

Actor Richard Coyle who plays Paul Sabine of the Sabine family of couturiers, says he took Dior as a starting point for his research, but “with Oliver’s words I found a way in through his secrets and lies”. He adds: “This is a particularly interesting period because of WWII and the hangover of everything that happened in France. That’s a really fertile place to be placing yourself and your imagination, so that’s been very informative and instructive, I think, for all of us. Because it’s almost like a character in itself, this shame that was carried around in France at the time.”

Mamie Gummer, who plays Helen Sabine, describes what Vaughan refers to as the “upstairs, downstairs” element of the story. “It’s the interplay between, you know, the one per cent, the people that can afford to dress and have the things that we have and the people who manufacture them and make them. Bridging that gap is also really valuable in terms of story and experience.”

Coyle says he has always had an interest in fashion. “I love the beauty of it and the sensuality of fashion. That’s been a part of my life for a very long time.”

For Gummer, fashion has not always been at the centre of things. “I was always kind of raised not to put a really high premium on it, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve started to appreciate how expressive it can be and especially in this business, you have to do it in a cursory way. But from that and especially working on this, I’m not ashamed of really seeing the value in it,” she says. “And you know when people have been through trauma, when is it OK to start laughing again? I remember after 9/11 the first Saturday Night Live that they hosted and aired — it’s like, OK, when is alright to start wearing pretty dresses and laugh again?”

Goldstick initially wanted to set the story in London but the more he studied the period the more he realised it wouldn’t work. “Because in London the austerity measures lasted for so long. And the Queen — she was a princess then — she viewed the New Look [Christian

• 41 •

Oliver Goldstick

Dior’s post-war designs] in a basement underground somewhere so that nobody would see her looking at it. She didn’t want her subjects knowing she was looking at those clothes.”

In Port Talbot, Wales, the ex-factory-cum-studio currently houses a series of striking sets depicting interiors and exteriors of post-war Paris. Some exteriors are being shot in the real streets of Paris, while the nearby Welsh city of Swansea doubles for the French capital in some scenes.

But at the start Goldstick needed to be convinced of the makeshift studio. “Kate sent me a photograph and I had a minor stroke,” he says. “I had one part of my body stop working when I saw the parking lot and Kate said, this will be Paris, the parking lot of a Ford Motor factory that was closed. It looked like my high school in Detroit, Michigan. I thought ‘Oh my God, how are we going to do this, what is this going to look like?’ But it looks extraordinary. This is from scratch, you’re talking about building something that was not here five weeks ago and recreating post-war Paris. And the truth is, as we know from our preliminary research, finding post-war Paris wouldn’t have been easy in Paris. You’d have to go to Eastern Europe. Paris does not look like it did in 1947, so by the time you get to re-dressing and cobble-stoning the streets, it’s a lot of work.”

The Collection is directed by Dearbhla Walsh and Dan Zeff and produced by Selwyn Roberts. The series is a Lookout Point and Artis Pictures Production, co-produced with Federation Entertainment and MFP, with the participation of France Television for Amazon Prime and BBC Worldwide. It is distributed internationally by BBC Worldwide. Executive producers are Anne Thomopoulos, Kate Croft, Pascal Breton, Simon Vaughan, Mederic Albouy for France Televisions and Tomas de Matteis for MFP. French designers Chattoune & Fab created all the costumes.

The series films in both Wales and France until May and is receiving investment from the Pinewood Wales Investment Budget and Pinewood, as well as production incentives from both the UK and France. n

Drama S pecial Repor t

MEET THE EXPERTS The MIP markets have brought together six major international acquisition executives to create the first ever Drama Buyers Advisory Board. We spoke to members of the board ahead of the inaugural MIPDrama Screenings

T

HE ROLE of the MIPDrama Advisory Board is to offer guidance in strategic and content development for future drama projects related to Reed MIDEM’s TV events, including MIPTV and MIPCOM. The Board will meet several times a year and its first key role is to judge the official selection of 12 new drama series, nominated by a jury of major international showrunners and screened at the inaugural MIPDrama Awards, and to nominate one of the series as recipient of the first Buyers’ ‘Coup de Cœur’ Award.

The MIPDrama Advisory Board members are: Ruediger Boess, executive vice-president, programming and acquisitions, ProsiebenSat,1; Ignacio Jose Barrera Tyszka, head of acquisitions, Albavision; Aline Marrache-Tesseraud, senior vice-president, international acquisitions, Canal+; Anette Romer, head of acquisitions and formats, TV2; Zelda Stewart, head of acquisitions, Mediaset RTI; and Sarah Wright, director of acquisitions, British Sky Broadcasting.

“Great drama can be channel defining,” Sarah Wright says. “When it’s at its best, it brings awards and audiences, old and new, in equal measure and that’s to what we all aspire in the broadcasting business. We are all looking for content that marks us out. In our case, content

Anette Romer

Zelda Stewart

which is worth paying for. Added to this, the boxset binge cultural shift plays well with addictive drama series, it’s supply and demand.”

Anette Romer speaks of the variety of TV drama that is played around the world. “TV drama is not just one thing, there is huge variation — from soap to mini-series, from network commissions to original productions by streaming outlets. From national drama where the local audience may immerse themselves in storytelling relevant to their own lives, to international productions or period drama which you may enjoy for its crafty storytelling and escape or dream for a while.”

In spite of this depth and variety of content that is currently available, she doesn’t believe that demand will slow down. “I do not subscribe to the ‘bubble-burst’ scenario. Yes, there are many, many titles in development and the viewer is spoilt for choice. But has anyone ever complained that there are too many restaurants?”

For Ruediger Boess, the MIPDrama Screenings event represents “a really good opportunity to really watch great shows and all together in a screening room, not alone at home — and to feel the emotion immediately”. He says we’re in “a different age” of TV drama now. “Now we see many serialised shows are being created. Which means we are not telling a story in

Rudiger Boess

Ignacio Barrera

• 42 •

a two-hour movie, we’re telling it in a 10-hour movie. And I think this is a great opportunity for storytellers. They can tell their stories in a much more individual way and in much more depth.”

Aline Marrache-Tesseraud cites Fox’s Homeland — a remake of Israeli series Prisoners Of War — ­­ as one such series. “There are so many great shows — my A-list is so long.

But if I had only one contemporary show to choose, I would say that Homeland should probably be on the top of the list. There are tons of reasons that would explain my deep admiration for the series. But briefly, the challenge to elaborate what is at the same time a sophisticated and a mainstream series has probably been achieved there, through unique storytelling and really strong, powerful characters. As far as I’m concerned, this series is the haute couture of contemporary masterpieces on TV.” “These are passionate and exciting times for drama players and viewers and they call for creative and inspired thought leadership,” Reed MIDEM Television Division director, Laurine Garaude says. “Today, we’ve answered that call by bringing together these influential and talented executives to play a fundamental role in developing new drama projects across the MIP Markets, starting with the MIPDrama Screenings at MIPTV.” n

Sarah Wright

Aline Marrache-Tesseraud

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Storytelling in the Digital Age 04 APRIL 2016 - 16.00 MIPTV AGORA, PALAIS 1

JOIN US AT THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION PANEL DISCUSSION

Creative Europe MEDIA

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LESLI LINKA GLATTER

WILLIAM BROYLES

HARVEY WEINSTEIN

HOMELAND, RAY DONOVAN, THE LEFTOVERS

CAST AWAY, APOLLO 13, JARHEAD

SOUTHPAW, DJANGO UNCHAINED

Emmy ® Award Winner

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LAURENCE FISHBURNE

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ANNA PAQUIN

JONATHAN RHYS MEYERS

ANIKA NONI ROSE

MALACHI KIRBY as Kunta Kinte

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MIPTV WORLD PREMIERE SCREENING

4.4.16

JEREMY RENNER

BOOTH P3.C-10

©2016 A&E Television Networks, LLC. All rights reserved.

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