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Ahead of Cannes Mipcom confab, Beta Film has closed a string of major deals on six premium series from Central Eastern Europe, a proof of the region’s fast transformation into a prime destination for multi-territory players such as HBO, Canal+ and Walter Presents, hungry for culturally-specific stories with global potential. Five of the shows come with a raft of prestigious accolades.

Case in point is the Serbian “Operation Sabre,“ winner of a Special Interpretation Award at Canneseries and Best Cee Drama at the recent Czech Serial Killer Festival, snapped up by HBO for the Cee region and Filmin for Spain and Portugal.

“We are extremely happy and grateful to have Beta Film on board as they are doing an amazing work with sales,“ said producer Snežana van Houwelingen of This and That Productions who also looks forward to the Serbian premiere on the local pubcaster Rts on Nov. 2. “The...

Ukrainian production banner Film.UA is partnering with the Find Your Own Foundation and a roster of top directing talents to launch “Missing,” an anthology series that explores the harrowing number of Ukrainians who have gone missing since the Russian invasion. The show will also shed light on the profound impact those losses have had on their families.

Set against the backdrop of the brutal conflict, “Missing” delves deep into the lives of individuals whose stories of loss, hope and determination unfold amidst the chaos of war. Inspired by real-life experiences documented through the Find Your Own Foundation, which was founded by TV host Kateryna Osadcha, the show will focus on the thousands of everyday Ukrainians who have disappeared during the war, as well as the countless others, including children, who have been illegally deported, highlighting the personal stories behind the statistics.

The series will be directed by Natalka Vorozhbyt (Venice...

Ancient Greek Aristotle got it right. The production whole is greater than the sum of its co-production parts. This was the sentiment at a Series Mania session titled ‘Fifty Shades of Co Pro’ on Tuesday.

Simone Emmelius, Zdf’s Senior VP international fiction – co-production and acquisition, laid it out: “You can only spend the Euro once, so you have the opportunity to maybe spend €200,000 [$218,000] on an episode, or you spend €200,000 on an episode that may cost €1.5 million. At the end of it, you get a production value of €1.5 million.” she explained. This encapsulates the essence of co-production, leveraging partnerships to attain a project that far exceeds what individual partners could do alone.

Three of Series Mania’s eight main international competition titles – “Apples Never Fall,” “Rematch,” “So Long, Marianne” — are co-productions. Some panel points of consensus:

Aligned Interests and Transparency

However, the foundation of a successful co-production lies in alignment,...

In the opening scene of In Her Car, a young Ukrainian woman stands before the bombed-out wreckage of her family home, screaming her sister’s name. There’s been a Russian missile attack, and the house, like the woman’s life, lies in ruins.

Two years into the Ukraine war — the second anniversary of the Russian invasion is this Saturday — the world has become accustomed to, some would say numbed to, an endless stream of similar scenes of destruction coming out of Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Donetsk. The devastation wrought by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war has become horrifyingly commonplace.

But this is not the nightly news. In Her Car is a drama series, conceived, produced, and shot in Ukraine in the wake of the Feb. 24 invasion that explores the psychological impact of the war on ordinary Ukrainians.

As the U.S. Congress continues to debate funding for Ukraine, with...

Since its establishment in 2018, Gaumont Germany has produced a wide range of series and TV movies, among them such timely shows as the critically acclaimed “Deutsches Haus” (“The Interpreter of Silence”), which was nominated for the Critics Choice Awards, and the Ukrainian series “In Her Car.”

A subsidiary of the French entertainment powerhouse, the Cologne and Berlin-based company also created such ambitious shows as Netflix’s historical epic “Barbarians” – the first season of which was one of the streamer’s most successful non-English-language series worldwide – and the award-winning Sky Original comedy “The Wasp,” about a professional dart player seeking to return to his former glory.

Discussing the company’s latest productions, Gaumont Germany President Sabine de Mardt says it’s important to combine broader entertainment with relevance, something both “The Interpreter of Silence” and “In Her Car” offer.

“’The Interpreter of Silence,’ in particular, even though it’s a period story,...

Beta Film has sold Starlight Media and Gaumont Ukrainian war drama “In Her Car” to Nhk Japan, Czech Republic, Latvia and Slovakia. Further negotiations are underway.

Created by Eugen Tunick – who directs alongside Arkadii Nepytaliuk – and backed by Zdf, France Télévisions and all Nordic public broadcasters, and “In Her Car” sees therapist Lydia (Anastasia Karpenko) trying to divorce her husband. It’s February 2022 and the war has started, but instead of following her daughter’s advice and fleeing the country, Lydia starts helping strangers, driving them to their destinations.

The show is set to world premiere on Feb. 19 in Berlin as part of a special event dedicated to the future of Ukraine in Europe, hosted by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

“The idea was to tell one story per episode: There is always a new passenger. That being said, it was also essential to follow Lydia’s story, because it keeps developing throughout the whole season.