News

After 12 seasons on linear TV, flagship Spanish talent show “Operación Triunfo,” produced by Banijay Iberia’s Gestmusic, has jumped successfully to the online environment via Prime Video.

“Operación Triunfo’s” first gala was the most viewed premiere in the history of Prime Video in Spain. Its app for voting accumulated 53 million votes and, on social networks, generated 718.9 million views in TikTok and YouTube, according to VOD analytics Sigmados30.

Since 2021, when Netflix teamed with Grupo iZen to launch “Insiders,” the streamer’s first Spanish Original reality show, the demand of unscripted content on the online platforms has been progressively increasing.

“Entertainment can be more cost effective for streamers than producing fiction,” argues iZen president Jose Velasco, who years ago produced the Spanish version of “Big Brother.”

“On part of the streamers this has also been an effect of shifting their focus. Now, entertainment and documentaries are new ways to attract the...

Festival

The 17th Zurich Film Festival (Sept. 23-Oct. 3) will honor Paul Schrader for his life’s work, which includes the screenplays for Martin Scorsese‘s “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “The Last Temptation of Christ,” and the films he directed, including “American Gigolo,” “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters,” “The Comfort of Strangers” and “First Reformed.”

Schrader will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award in person at Zurich Convention Center on Oct. 1 before presenting his new film “The Card Counter,” which bowed at the Venice Film Festival. He will also deliver a masterclass.

“I am pleased to be honored by a very hip film festival in the beautiful city of Zurich,” said Schrader. “I have many fond memories and friends there, and am appreciative that this honor will allow me to visit those”.

“It is a dream for me as a cinephile to pay homage to Paul Schrader at the Zff.

Soccer

Sky and London’s Tottenham Hotspur, featured in the 2020 edition of Amazon Prime Video’s hit “All or Nothing” documentary series, will work together to make the club’s Sept. 19 fixture against London rivals Chelsea Football Club the world’s first net zero carbon major soccer match, ahead of next month’s Un COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.

The match, supported by COP26 and the English Premier League (Epl), is being branded as #GameZero. To achieve the goal of net zero carbon, the organizations will reduce on-site emissions as much as possible and offset remaining emissions through off-site projects which remove carbon from the atmosphere.

Measures to be taken by Sky and Tottenham include minimizing emissions from matchday activities such as energy used to power the game, travel to and from the stadium for both fans and clubs, and dietary choices inside the new world class stadium.

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ITV...

‘The War Rooms’ will explore the lives of the women who worked with Winston Churchill during WWII.

UK actress Jenna Coleman is set to star in and executive produce The War Rooms, a new TV series to be produced by London-based Trademark Films and UK-us company Atlantic Nomad.

The project is Trademark producer David Parfitt’s first since The Father, which won two Oscars at the weekend for best actor (Anthony Hopkins) and best adapted screenplay (Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton).

Parfitt is producing alongside Jamie Carmichael, who set up Atlantic Nomad in 2018 having previously been president of film at...

David Parfitt, producer of Oscar and BAFTA-winning “The Father,” is back with series “The War Rooms,” starring Jenna Coleman.

Parfitt will produce via his Trademark Films alongside Jamie Carmichael for Atlantic Nomad.

Created by David Chidlow, “The War Rooms” is the untold story of the women who lived, loved and triumphed in Winston Churchill’s secret Whitehall bunker. The series is based on the true story of Joan Bright (Coleman), who started WWII as a secretary and ended it organizing the great Allied conferences. Ian Fleming was her friend and it is rumored that Bright was the template for the iconic Miss Moneypenny character in the James Bond novels and films. Bright’s memoir “The Inner Circle: A View of War at the Top” has been optioned for the series.

“Joan Bright was never going to live a conventional life — a young woman who lived her war days under the official secrets act,...

Amazon Prime Video and Juventus soccer club have announced a new Italian Amazon original behind-the-scenes documentary series, “All or Nothing: Juventus.”

The series will follow the popular Italian soccer club through the current 2020/21 season, and will stream on Amazon Prime Video worldwide later this year. It will take viewers on a behind the scenes journey with the club covering all of the key events, including the arrival of Andrea Pirlo as the club’s new head coach. The cameras will be inside the Allianz Stadium, their training facilities in Turin and, away from the pitch, the series will focus on the unique aspects of the Club Bianconero [“white and black”] and of its identity, which is rooted in Italian culture and history, but looking to the future.

The fortunes of Jfc are keenly followed globally, especially the club’s talismanic player Cristiano Ronaldo.

The series will be produced by Fulwell 73, with executive producers Leo Pearlman and Ben Turner,...

Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, the Film Festival Cologne will be one of the first major festivals in Europe to take place entirely physically as the coronavirus continues to wane in Germany. It runs Oct. 1-8.

Launched in 1991 as the Cologne Conference, as it was known until 2016, the international film and television festival celebrates some of the year’s best feature films, series and documentaries.

This year’s Best of Cinema Fiction selections include Todd Haynes’ environmental drama “Dark Waters,” starring Mark Ruffalo, and Josephine Decker’s biopic “Shirley,” featuring Elisabeth Moss as novelist Shirley Jackson. Thomas Vinterberg’s “Another Round” (pictured) is also among the films making its way to Cologne via the festival circuit.

Among the works being presented in Top Ten TV are the BBC series “Trigonometry,” which follows a young married couple in London whose life takes a turn for the better when they take in a flatmate; and “Parlement,...

Amazon Prime Video and Spain’s Atresmedia Studios have teamed for “Living Abroad,” a four-part doc series which continues the global giant’s successful line in insider soccer star portraits – think Emmy winning “Six Dreams.”

Set to release on Amazon Prime Video in Spain and the U.K. on June 5, “Living Abroad” also marks a further collaboration between Amazon and series producer Atresmedia Studios, one of Spain’s biggest premium content production powerhouses.

Directed by Sonia Lopez, and executive produced by Jorge Pérez Vega and Ignacio Corrales, “Living Abroad” will profile some of the most important figures in the modern Spanish game as the country’s national team completed an unprecedented triple winning the UEFA Euro 2008, the 2010 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2012.

Still underrated – no Spaniard has scored more goals in the Premier League – Juan Mata moved to Chelsea in 2011 and Man. United in 2014, and is still one of...

Amazon Prime Video is ready for some more football — and the NFL, for now, expects to be hitting the field this fall.

Amazon is set to stream a dozen NFL games worldwide for the next three seasons on both Prime and the Twitch live-streaming platform, under a renewal of its pact with the league for rights to “Thursday Night Football” games through 2022.

And Amazon has secured an additional carve-out: Under the new deal with the NFL, it will have exclusive global rights to one late-season game globally on Prime Video and Twitch each of the next three seasons.

Terms of the renewed deal weren’t disclosed. Amazon has held the “Tnf” streaming rights for the past three seasons (starting in 2017) and clearly it has found value through delivering NFL games to its more than 150 million Prime members around the world. Amazon had been paying about $65 million annually for the package...

Nathaniel Rateliff sings in a creepy winter wonderland in the new video for “All or Nothing.” The soulful track is off his new album And It’s Still Alright, released last February.

Directed by Doug Spencer, the clip features Rateliff’s silhouette against snowy mountains as a circus appears. A headless man balances his skull on his palm, while performers on a flying trapeze swing by. “Too much time spent alone/Trying to pull yourself under,” he sings over sparse guitar. “Is that thunder or the/Sense that someone calls your name?...

Nathaniel Rateliff began the month of March kicking off his tour in support of And It’s Still Alright, his first solo album in seven years. Within weeks, his tour had been put on hold, as musicians around the country found themselves heading home and cancelling tours as the coronavirus pandemic reached the United States.

Rateliff did find time, however, to recently perform a few of his new songs for “In My Room,” Rolling Stone’s new Igtv series that features artists performing music from the comfort and safety of their own homes.

As part of MipTV Online Plus’s conference lineup Michelle Lin of media consultancy K7 Media highlighted a number of trends in reality shows, with the focus on social experiments, sports stories and true crime.

Lin started her session by making a general observation about factual programming. “Broadly speaking topics are becoming much more specific in their focus. Stories are more personal and to a certain degree extreme,” she said. “This allows the show to receive more coverage in tabloids, poses more of a purpose, and in turn draw in more viewers.”

She observed that in reality shows “individuals are taking ownership of their conditions,” and used a few social experiment shows as examples. Some shows have been influenced by the rise in vegan diets, such as “Travel With a Goat” on Insight TV, in which two foodies decide whether to slaughter and eat a goat. These shows typically are...

Amazon Prime Video has greenlit a sports docuseries about top flight French football club, Paris Saint-Germain.

The latest in a line of Amazon original documentaries about top sports clubs and individuals, the four-part series includes interviews with previous and current players, coaches, supporters and executives from the club. It also features footage from inside the day-to-day life of the club and how it prepares for its matches.

Paris Saint-Germain has attracted many leading players including Ronaldinho, Beckham, Ibrahimovic, and currently Neymar Jr, Mbappé, Cavani and Thiago Silva.

Jointly produced by Psg TV and Capa and directed by Manuel Herrero, the docuseries will launch this year on Amazon Prime Video globally, except in China and Middle East.

The untitled docuseries will have exclusive footage captured during the current season and over the last 50 years and promises a level of access never granted by the club before.

Created in 1970, Paris Saint-Germain football...

The political thriller has enjoyed the best opening weekend for a local film in national cinemas in the last 20 years. 2019 was a great year for Slovakian films on domestic turf, as the one-million-viewer threshold was exceeded for national productions (see the news). The most-visited Slovakian movie of 2019 ended up being The Rift (see the news), an adaptation of Jozef Karika’s book of the same name, directed by Peter Bebjak. National distributor Continental Film has honed the art of marketing Bebjak’s films, resulting in a strong opening weekend at the box office. In August 2017, The Line drew 69,242 paying theatre-goers, while 83,266 viewers came to see The Rift during its first week on release. Incidentally, 2017 was also a record-breaking year for openings of domestic films (see the news). The romantic comedy All or Nothing was the first to break the opening record, followed by...

World Cup-winning German soccer player Bastian Schweinsteiger is to be the subject of a new Amazon documentary.

Made by German production company Barefoot Films and produced by Til Schweiger, the film will chart Schweinsteiger’s glittering career, which peaked with lifting the World Cup in 2014.

Schweinsteiger played for Bayern Munich, Manchester United and ended his career at Chicago Fire, where he made 85 appearances. As well as following his on-field exploits, the film will have access to his life away from the pitch.

“With this documentary, that is exclusively available on Prime Video, great cinema meets great football,” said Christoph Schneider, managing director of Prime Video Germany.

The film will stream in Germany, Austria and Switzerland this year. It is the latest in a long line of Amazon sport documentaries, including All Or Nothing: Manchester City and Andy Murray: Resurfacing.

Amazon has continued its push into soccer by scoring rights to broadcast the UEFA Champions League in Germany.

Amazon will broadcast matches from the elite European competition on Tuesday nights from the 2021/22 soccer season. Sky Deutschland and sports streamer Dazn currently show the Champions League in Germany.

“We’re excited to bring Uefa Champions League football to our customers in Germany,” said Alex Green, managing director of Prime Video Sport Europe.

Amazon has secured a smaller package of rights in Germany, with bidding still ongoing on the remaining rights, which could yet remain with Sky Deutschland.

The move follows Amazon broadcasting the Premier League for the first time in the UK last week, helping set records for the most new sign-ups since it launched Prime in 2007, as “millions” of Brits tuned in.

The Jeff Bezos-owned streamer is also building on its All or Nothing: Manchester City documentary with a...

Madrid — Amazon Prime Video has announced a slate of three new Spanish original series set for 2020, which will strengthen the streamer’s domestic catalog in the country. It also shared the first trailer for its second Spanish soccer docu-series “El corazón de Sergio Ramos” (The Heart of Sergio Ramos).

In “El Cid,” popular Spanish actor Jaime Lorente, a lead player in Netflix’s two biggest Spanish hits thus far “Money Heist” and “Elite,” will play Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar in a series inspired by the legendary medieval war hero, whose deeds inspired one of the most important of medieval Spanish epic poems, “El Cantar de Mio Cid.”

“’El Cid’ will be a unique and ambitious series that requires a cast with incredible talent and agility,” said Georgia Brown, Amazon director of European Original series in a press release. “Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar is a fascinating figure, a true hero whose...

Amazon has ordered a documentary series to go from Starbucks. “This is Football” will span the globe and tell six stories about the global power of soccer. Veteran producer and film exec Joe Roth, an owner of the Seattle Sounders team, will exec produce the series. It will go out in the U.S. and internationally as an Amazon original.

U.K. indie October Films, known for its series for U.K. broadcasters including “Walking the Nile” and “Walking the Americas,” is making the show with its Spanish counterpart Brutal Media, and Starbucks.

The six one-hour episodes have titles including “Belief,” “Love,” and “Pride.” Episodes will look at football’s uplifting role in Rwanda after the genocide, the rise of the women’s game, and Barcelona and Argentina superstar Lionel Messi.

James Erskine (“One Night in Turin”) will serve as creative director. Emmy-nominated composer Lorne Balfe (“Mission Impossible: Fallout”) will score the series.

Exclusive: Amazon Prime Video has scored a landmark soccer documentary series from producers including Joe Roth, coffee chain Starbucks, Barbarians Rising producer October Films and Spanish firm Brutal Media. The Svod service will launch This Is Football, a six-part series that will look at the stories behind the world’s most popular sport, on August 2.

It comes after Deadline revealed last July that British indie October Films, which makes shows such as Nat Geo’s Mygrations and Levison Wood’s Walking franchise, had partnered with Spain’s Brutal Media, which makes shows such as This Is Art for TV3 and Movistar and dramas such as We Shall Return for Televisió de Catalunya and Televisión Española, to develop the project.

The series will explore the emotions, stories, passions and triumphs behind the sport. Each episode will tackle a different theme including redemption, looking at the sports’ role in rebuilding Rwanda after the genocide,...

Aiming to ramp up its premium international content, Amazon Prime Video has greenlit the production of 17 new original series from Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain, India, Japan and Mexico.

These include “The Power,” a British contemporary thriller based on Naomi Alderman’s bestselling science-fiction novel; “El Presidente,” a Mexican crime series inspired by the 2015 corruption scandal that engulfed world soccer body FIFA ; “We Children of Bahnhof Zoo,” a German series based on the 1978 controversial autobiographical book by the same name; “The Last Hour,” an Indian supernatural crime thriller set in the Himalayas; and an untitled social issue series produced by Vice Media Japan, which will mark the first collaboration between Vice and Amazon Prime Video.

“We know that customers watching Prime Video everywhere want to see authentic stories, set in their own countries, and to invest in characters that can reflect their own experiences and diversity,” said Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios.

Amazon is going global in a big way with the launch of 20 new and returning international series including titles from the likes of Amy director Asif Kapadia as well as a Japanese version of The Bachelorette.

It has ordered a raft of scripted and non-scripted titles from Germany, Italy, Spain, India, Japan and Mexico (full list below).

“We’re delighted to announce the commissioning of more than twenty new and returning series, to be produced in seven countries across three continents around the world. We know that customers watching Prime Video everywhere want to see authentic stories, set in their own countries, and to invest in characters that can reflect their own experiences and diversity,” said Jennifer Salke, Head of Amazon Studios. “We’re excited and committed to amplifying the voices of storytellers from all over the world and to bring their visions to life for our viewers worldwide.”

James Farrell,...

Miami — Mediapro, one of Europe’s biggest independent TV groups, and Mexican TV giant Televisa, have inked a multi-year production alliance to co-develop and co-produce a minimum of three drama series aimed at fueling Televisa’s premium programming and output for Mexico and the U.S. but also targeted at worldwide markets.

Linking two of the most powerful production players in the Spanish-speaking world, the alliance between Mediapro Us and Televisa kicks off with “Unwanted,” created by Ran Tellem, an executive producer on “Homeland,” and Spain’s Mariano Baselga (“The Boarding School”); and “Stroke,” from Argentina’s Oficina Burman, headed by writer-director Daniel Burman, a leading light of the New Argentine Cinema.

Announced on the first day of Miami’s Natpe by Patricio Wills, president and studio head of Televisa Studios, and Laura Fernández Espeso, Mediapro director of international content, the alliance runs for three years.

Televisa will carry out physical production in Mexico,...

The story of one of the iconic figures of the beautiful game is coming to Netflix, which will launch “Bobby Robson: More Than a Manager” on its platform globally.

The film tells the story of much-loved soccer player and manager Bobby Robson, who took charge of English club Ipswich and Spanish giants Barcelona among others in a storied club career. At the international level, he was manager of England’s soccer team for two World Cups, including the 1990 tournament in which he took the squad to the semifinals. Robson died in 2009.

The film features unseen footage from his career and also follows his battles with cancer and his establishment of the Sir Bobby Robson Cancer Foundation. It was produced by U.K.-based Noah Media, which has made other sports films, including “Steve McQueen: The Man and Le Mans” and “Clough.” There are interviews with soccer A-listers such as Alex Ferguson,...

Amazon Prime Video premiered its original sports documentary series “All or Nothing: Manchester City” in Manchester, England Wednesday. The first episode of the series, which focuses on the English soccer champions, was screened in the presence of the whole Manchester City squad and its coach, Pep Guardiola, who previously coached Barcelona and Bayern Munich. Among those watching the series for the first time were global soccer stars Sergio Aguero, Gabriel Jesus and Kevin de Bruyne.

The series, which launches worldwide Friday, follows in the footsteps of the Emmy-winning “All or Nothing” NFL series, and subsequent shows that zeroed in on the New Zealand national rugby team, the All Blacks, and college football team the Michigan Wolverines.

Before the first episode was shown, Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany was interviewed on-stage by BBC sports show host Gabby Logan. The Belgian star said he was feeling nervous as he waited to watch the documentary.

On today’s television roundup, TNT orders two new scripted drama shows and HBO’s “2 Dope Queens” will return next year for a second season.

Casting

Shamon Brown Jr., Barton Fitzpatrick and Michael Epps have been upped from guest stars to series regulars for the second season of “The Chi.” The hit Showtime drama series is currently in production in Chicago and will return to the network in 2019.

Renewals

HBO announced “2 Dope Queens,” featuring Jessica Williams and Phoebe Robinson, will return next year for a second series of four hour-long specials. Based on the hit comedy Wnyc podcast of the same name, the show debuted on the network to critical acclaim last February with four shows directed by Tig Notaro and featuring special guests Uzo Aduba, Tituss Burgess, Sarah Jessica Parker and Jon Stewart.

Dates

Sony Crackle announced the sophomore season of its scripted original drama, “Snatch,” starring...

Gandhi and Sexy Beast star Ben Kingsley is to narrate Amazon’s forthcoming sports doc series All or Nothing: Manchester City.

The actor, who grew up in Pendlebury, Manchester, and was educated at Manchester Grammar School, provides his voice for the series, which is produced by Peter Berg’s Film 45 and Mediapro in association with Img.

Amazon will ordered the behind-the-scenes multi-part exclusive series following the four-time top flight championship winning soccer team, Manchester City, through the current 2017/18 season.

The series follows the team’s legendary coach, Pep Guardiola and the weekly stories that unfold within the lives of the players. It chronicles Manchester City’s 2017/18 season from the world-leading training facilities at the City Football Academy, to interviews with the manager and executive meetings.

Guardiola was one of the best players and coaches of his generation, having won three Champions League titles during his time at Fc Barcelona. He...

Amazon has netted a package of rights to English Premier League soccer games for its Prime Video streaming service, a major move into U.K. premium sports rights by the U.S. online giant. The deal runs for three seasons from 2019.

The agreement gives Amazon a package of 20 matches per season from the league. The company said it would make the games available as part of its current Amazon Prime subscription deal. The other remaining package of rights has been picked up by telco BT, which will play the matches on its BT Sport service.

Pay-tv giant Sky has for years been the home of Premier League games in Britain, which are a cornerstone of its business. BT has also joined the fray in recent years and, with Sky, had already sealed deals for the majority of the EPL games between 2019 and 2022. Sky has 128 games per season, and BT has 52.

Two of the seven packages of rights available had been left unsold in that last round of deal-making, with the EPL reportedly failing to get its original asking price. Amazon has now stepped in and scooped up one of those tranches of rights. Specifically, Amazon gets 10 games over one of the Premier League’s busy public-holiday periods, likely Boxing Day, Dec. 26., and 10 during one of the league’s program of midweek fixtures.

“The Premier League is the most-watched sports league in the world,” said Jay Marine, vice president of Prime Video in Europe. “Over these two December fixture rounds, Prime members will be able to watch every team, every game, so no matter which Premier League team you support, you’re guaranteed to see them play live on Prime Video.”

“We welcome Amazon as an exciting new partner and we know Prime Video will provide an excellent service on which fans can consume the Premier League,” added Richard Scudamore, the league’s executive chairman.

The soccer move is Amazon’s biggest play yet as it moves into sports, differentiating itself from streaming rival Netflix in the process. It has already secured ATP and U.S. Open tennis for the U.K. and NFL games. It also has a range of sports-themed doc series such as the “All or Nothing” strand that includes “All or Nothing: New Zealand All Blacks,” “All or Nothing: Manchester City,” and “All or Nothing: Dallas Cowboys.”

The Amazon deal is good news for the EPL, which will welcome competition after the value of its main rights packages fell this time. For U.K. soccer fans, the fragmenting rights deals mean they need multiple subscriptions to see all games.