News

Exclusive: Orange is the New Black and Weeds showrunner Jenji Kohan is to deliver a masterclass at Seriesly Berlin, the new TV festival launching in the German capital next week.

The storied creator-showrunner will “share insights into her writing process, developing and pitching shows, handling feedback, and maintaining a strong creative voice,” according to the fest. The first-come-first-served talk is encouraging screenwriters in particular to register and will take place Tuesday at 1 p.m. Cet (4 a.m. Pt).

Kohan is the creator and showrunner of Showtime smash Weeds and Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, one of the streamer’s biggest early hits. Other credits include Tough Trade, Glow and, more recently, Netflix’s The Decameron, which is an adaptation of the famous Italian novel.

Kohan will speak from the panoramic view of Berlin at Fotografiska’s rooftop bar.

She joins a growing linuep that includes Amazon Germany Country Director Christoph Schneider,...

Germany’s newest scripted confab, Seriesly Berlin, takes place later this month and the schedule is coming together.

Four-part Prime Video series German Cocaine Cowboy from Beetz Brothers Film Production will be teased, while the streamer’s Country Director for Germany, Christoph Schneider, will appear in a fireside chat that I’ll be moderating to offer insights into content strategy. German Cocaine Cowboy tells the story of a German who became involved in the Cali Cartel in the 1990s.

Also scheduled to appear at Seriesly is Mel Eslyn, the President of Duplass Brothers Productions, which is known for Netflix’s Wild Wild Country and HBO’s Somebody Somewhere. She’ll discuss indie filmmaking in the context of serial production, and will present the European premiere of Penelope, the indie young adult series that premiered at Sundance. Netflix later snagged U.S. rights to the show, which Eslyn co-created with Mark Duplass,...

Exclusive: Bestselling South African scribe Deon Meyer is turning his Last Of Us-esque thriller Fever into a TV series with Federation Meac.

The adaptation, which doesn’t yet have a buyer, is part of a three-project deal struck between Meyer’s Scenne23 and the Federation Studios label, with Meyer set to pen the series himself.

Fever follows Nico Storm and his father Willem, who are the few in South Africa to have survived a devastating virus that wiped out more than 90% of the world’s population. Willem, a thinker and a leader, has a vision for a new community rebuilt from the ruins of the old world, and so Amanzi is formed with a disparate group of survivors. Killing Eve producer Sid Gentle optioned the novel five years ago but that option has run down.

Joachim Landau, who runs Federation Meac, which develops projects mainly in the Middle East, Africa and Caribbean,...

Welcome to Global Breakouts, Deadline’s fortnightly strand in which we shine a spotlight on the TV shows and films killing it in their local territories. The industry is as globalized as it’s ever been, but breakout hits are emerging in pockets of the world all the time and it can be hard to keep track. That’s why we’re doing the hard work for you.

This week, we detail a co-production from South Africa and France that spotlights the four-wheeled sport of spinning. Not heard of it? Well neither had we, but on closer inspection this series is far more than an exhibition of a little-known extreme pasttime. Creatives on the Showmax-Canal+ co-pro tell us why ‘Spinners‘ holds a mirror up to society, and where they think it could travel next.

Name: Spinners

Country: South Africa & France

Networks: Showmax & Canal+

Producer: Empreinte Digitale & Natives at Large

International...

ITV Spent $68M On Diverse Shows In 2023

ITV invested £54.2M ($68M) of its Diversity Commissioning Fund last year on shows made by or about people from under-represented backgrounds such as Lenny Henry’s Three Little Birds. The fund was launched in 2022 with £80M to be spent across three years to “drive change towards racial equity and disability equity in whose stories get told,” with one quarter reserved for content made by “production companies led by People of Colour and/or Deaf, Disabled and/or Neurodivergent people.” The figures came as part of the Love Island network’s Diversity Acceleration Plan report for the previous 12 months, which said 475 productions across around 160 production companies have embedded Dei using ITV’s production principles over the past three years. The BBC has a similar £100M fund across a three-year period to March 2024 and says it has already exceeded this target. ITV said plans for...

Fasten your seat belts! African streamer Showmax and Canal+ are getting ready to go pedal to the metal.

The streaming company, co-owned by African pay-tv giant MultiChoice Group and Comcast, and the French pay TV giant has released a trailer for the eight-part gangster and extreme sports drama Spinners, which The Hollywood Reporter is revealing exclusively.

The companies’ third co-production, set in South Africa’s Cape Town, became the first African show to take part in CanneSeries’ main competition.

Spinners follows Ethan (Cantona James), a 17-year-old driver working for a gang who is trying to support his younger brother and discovers a possible way out of gang life: spinning, an extreme motorsport that features drivers performing jaw-dropping daredevil stunts. However, a looming gang war jeopardizes his plans.

The cast includes James (Arendsvlei) and Chelsea Thomas (Arendsvlei) in leading roles, along with Elton Landrew (Recipes for Love & Murder); Dillon Windvogel...

Big presence from US streamers at festival’s 6th edition.

Canneseries has lined up world premieres of series such as Silo, Dead Ringers, Fatal Attraction and Tapie for its sixth edition which runs parallel with MipTV from April 14-19.

Artistic director Albin Lewi highlighted the “massive presence of American series world premiering this year” including festival opener Silo produced for Apple TV+ by AMC Studios.

Stars Rebecca Ferguson, Morten Tyldum and Graham Yost will be at Canneseries for the world premiere of Silo, a dystopian tale that follows the last 10,000 people on earth.

The festival closes with episodes from the...

Studiocanal will stage at the London TV Screenings the international premiere of “Spinners,” an eight-part extreme sports action drama set on the mean streets of Cape Town’s Southside, that is not just a series but a sign of an industry zeitgeist.

As the competition for talent grows, there’s a building drive into emerging production hubs beyond the traditional powerhouse territories in Europe led by some of its most powerful players, here France’s Canal+, Studiocanal and Federation Studios, and some of its biggest TV events, such as Series Mania.

Produced by Joachim Landau and Raphaël Rocher at Federation Studios’ Empreinte Digitale, and co-created by Landau, “Spinners” is a co-production of South Africa’s Showmax, Africa’s biggest pan-continental SVOD service available in 65 countries, and Vivendi’s Canal+, rating as both a Showmax and Canal+ Original.

“Spinners” makes its market bow just months after French powerhouse Federation Studios and...

Festivals

American narrative feature projects in rough or final cut seeking finishing funds are now invited to submit to the 2022 edition of U.S. in Progress, which takes place Nov. 9-11 during the 13th American Film Festival (Nov.8-13) in Wroclaw, Poland. The strand pairs American projects in final production stages with European buyers and top Polish image and sound post-production companies and provides awards worth totally $100,000. The head of the Polish Film Institute, Radosław Śmigulski, will award one project with a $50,000 cash award to be spent on post-production, image, sound and/or VFX in Poland and Polish post-production companies Fixafilm, Orka Studio, Black Photon, Xanf and Soundflower Studio are each offering a $10,000 in-kind award.

There is no entry fee, and films can be submitted through the U.S. in Progress website. The final deadline is September 11.

The program’s objective is to inspire U.S. producers to work with Poland,...

Canal+ is teaming with African streamer Showmax for its latest drama from Africa, an action drama about the dangerous South African motor sport spinning. Production on Spinners began in Cape Town on the eight-part series this week, with Gaia director Jaco Bouwer attached.

Shot in English, Kaaps and Afrikaans, it is produced by Joachim Landau and Raphaël Rocher for French indie Empreinte Digitale and co-produced by Locarno, Amiens and Fespaco winner Ramadan Suleman and his full service film and TV production outfit Natives at Large. Canal+-owned Studiocanal has international distribution rights.

Landau co-created the show with Benjamin Hoffman. Director is Bouwer, whose horror Gaia won the Zeiss Cinematography Award last year at SXSW, and Matthew Jankes, Sean Steinberg, Gillian Breslin, Daniel Zimbler, Byron Abrahams and Zoë Laband comprising the writing team.

The motor sport on which the series is based sees cars driven at high speed with drivers performing...

Ben Hoffman gratuates from infoMania to The Ben Show on Comedy Central.

News

Former Common Law cop Michael Ealy is moving on to play an android cop in a pilot about a future where police officers are paired with an android partner.

This is starting to feel like a curse for Syfy. The British fantasy series Sinbad has been cancelled after just one season. The series is set to debut on Syfy in April and is the second imported series (along with Primeval: New World) to get the axe before it can make its debut stateside this year. I guess I should be happy there's already a second season of Continuum in the works.

The cast for Will Arnett's CBS comedy pilot keeps getting better, adding Mary Elizabeth Ellis (probably most easily recognized as The Waitress from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) to play Arnett's sister.

USA has ordered a reality series,...