News

Paris-based distributor Newen Connect has agreed a further three-year deal with global production and financing studio Anton.

The deal sees Newen Connect receiving financial investment in exchange for Anton gaining shared distribution revenues from its slate.

Newen said the deal would help it develop and support ambitious high end European programmes.

It is the third extension to the agreement between Newen Connect and Anton that first began in 2019.

Anton’s investment has helped Newen to develop series with Newen’s inhouse labels and production partnerships with companies including Ucg and Jude Law’s Riff Raff Entertainment. It has invested in...

Newen Studios Renews Financial Pact With Anton

Newen Connect has renewed its pact with global production and financing studio Anton for a further three years. This sees the Newen Studios subsidiary receive investment in exchange for Anton gaining shared distribution revenue. It is the third extension to the agreement, which began in 2019, and means Newen Connect will now focus on developing further series, while Anton gets to deepen its ties with Newen labels such as Ucg and Jude Law’s Riff Raff Entertainment. To datum the pact has led to Anton investing in more than 70 productions from across Europe, including the recently launched French thriller series Cat’s Eyes, plus Swedish political thriller 8 Months and upcoming sci-fi film We Come in Peace. “Newen Connect has significant plans both in the range of the projects we want to co-develop and invest in over the coming years… this partnership with Anton will...

Fast-expanding Scandi production group Anagram, credited for the first Disney+ Nordic original series “To Cook a Bear” and hit series “Thin Blue Line,” has taken a stake in Helsinki-based Just Republic, becoming the largest owner of the Finnish production outfit, Variety has just learned.

Recently founded by producer Sasu Norhomaa and creator/writer Jemina Jokisalo – formerly at Solar Republic – the banner is in the limelight at Canneseries with the porn biz comedy “Money Shot,” due to world premiere April 9 at the TV festival’s short form competition.

With this acquisition, Newen Studios-owned Anagram, has added Finland to its Swedish and Norwegian production divisions and consolidated its position as a heavyweight provider of quality films, series and live entertainment in the Nordics.

“Our aim is to be a true pan-Nordic operation,” said Miira Paasilinna, Anagram COO and Anagram Sweden’s managing director. “We are active in Sweden and Norway and...

Exclusive: More citizens will head to the polls this year for elections than any other in history, and the political fever has reached Series Mania.

This year’s event in Lille, France contains four political dramas in competition — not surprising given almost 50% of the world will vote for new leaders in more than 64 elections (including the European Union), according to Time magazine.

“It is all things political in 2024,” said Leona Connell, Chief Commercial Officer at Newen Connect, the sales arm of TF1 Group’ owned French sales house’s Newen Studios that will representing two of the highest profile political titles at Series Mania, In the Shadows and 8 Months.

In the Shadows (Dans L’Ombre) comes from Versailles and Rembrandt director Pierre Schoeller, who adapted a novel from former French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and Gilles Boyer, a political insider who served as Philippe’s advisor.

The series stars Swann Arlaud as...

Peacock’s Apples Never Fall, MGM+’s Hotel Cocaine and Nrk’s buzzy drama about Leonard Cohen, So Long, Marianne will be in the International Competition race at Series Mania in March.

The shows will be up against BBC Three’s UK series Boarders, France 2 drama Dans L’Ombre (In the Shadows), Ard’s German series Herrhausen, the Banker and the Bomb, ABC Australia’s House of Gods, and Franco-Hungarian co-production Rematch, which is for Arte, Disney+ and HBO Europe.

The shows comprise an interesting cross-section of U.S. and European projects, with the Annette Bening-starring thriller Apples Never Fall among the highest profile. Hotel Cocaine, about a Cuban expatriate who re-made his life in Miami, is among MGM+’s biggest recent bets, while So Long, Marianne has been building steam as a study into the life of singer-songwriter Cohen and his muse, Marianne Ihlen.