News

A steady drip of deals keeps coming out of MIPCOM as the Cannes-set global television market begins to wind down.

Among the notable series deals have been pre-sales of the PBS/ITV upstairs/downstairs drama Hotel Portofino, which Beta Film has sold to public broadcasters across the Nordic territories and to the Netherlands. Natascha McElhone (Californication, Designated Survivor) stars in the period drama focused on a British family who emigrate to open a high-end hotel in Italy in 1920, just as Benito Mussolini’s Fascists are on the rise. Mark Umbers and Anna Chancellor co-star alongside Italian talents Daniele Pecci, Lorenzo Richelmy and Rocco Fasano....

A steady drip of deals keeps coming out of MIPCOM as the Cannes-set global television market begins to wind down.

Among the notable series deals have been pre-sales of the PBS/ITV upstairs/downstairs drama Hotel Portofino, which Beta Film has sold to public broadcasters across the Nordic territories and to the Netherlands. Natascha McElhone (Californication, Designated Survivor) stars in the period drama focused on a British family who emigrate to open a high-end hotel in Italy in 1920, just as Benito Mussolini’s Fascists are on the rise. Mark Umbers and Anna Chancellor co-star alongside Italian talents Daniele Pecci, Lorenzo Richelmy and Rocco Fasano....

Jan Mojto’s Munich-based sales and production powerhouse Beta Film, whose Mipcom slate includes “Sisi” and “La Fortuna,” has closed pre-sales across the Nordic Region and in the Netherlands’ for the PBS-ITV period drama series “Hotel Portofino.” The British show, created and written by Matt Baker, stars Natascha McElhone, whose credits include “Ronin,” “Californication” and “Designated Survivor.”

“Hotel Portofino” has been acquired by Dr for Denmark, Svt for Sweden, Nrk for Norway, Yle for Finland and Syn for Iceland, as well as Dutch national broadcaster Npo. Further negotiations with several international broadcasters are underway.

In previously announced deals, ITV, BritBox, Sky Italia and Foxtel in Australia joined the drama, produced by Eagle Eye in association with Beta Film, while PBS Distribution took North American rights.

The six-hour series, centered around a British family who emigrate to open a high-end hotel in Italy, captures the long-established literary tradition of...

Documentary

In a recent study conducted by Sky marking the one-year anniversary Sky Documentaries, two in five Brits admit to watching more documentaries over the last 12 months than ever before. With those numbers in mind, the broadcaster has unveiled five new original commissions and released a first trailer for its highly anticipated upcoming docuseries “Murder at the Cottage: The Search for Justice for Sophie,” announcing that the series will premiere on Sky Crime and streaming service Now on Sunday, June 20.

“Murder at the Cottage” is produced, directed and features six-time Oscar nominated director Jim Sheridan, who spent more than a decade documenting the 25-year-old case of French film and TV producer Sophie Toscan Du Plantier, wife of filmmaker Daniel Toscan du Plantier, who was murdered at her holiday home in Schull, West Cork.

New documentaries announced by Sky include:

“Mother Teresa: For the Love of God?”, a look at the...

Ronin and Californication star Natascha McElhone is to headline a period drama set on the Italian Riviera, which has pre-sold to ITV/BritBox (UK), Sky Italia (Italy), and Foxtel (Australia). Titled Hotel Portofino, PBS Distribution has taken North American rights.

Eagle Eye Drama, founded by the team behind foreign-language streamer Walter Presents, houses the project. Production has commenced in Italy and Croatia on the show, which also stars Mark Umbers (Home Fires) and Anna Chancellor (Four Weddings and a Funeral).

Hotel Portofino features McElhone as Bella Ainsworth, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist who moves to Italy to set up a quintessentially British hotel in the town of Portofino. Umbers plays her charming but dangerous husband, Cecil, while Chancellor stars as Lady Latchmere, the hotel’s most influential but hard-to-please guest.

Created and written by former ViacomCBS international comms chief Matt Baker (Before We Die), the series features a classic ‘whodunit’ mystery woven throughout,...

Chicago – Though you probably don’t know his name, Christopher McQuarrie’s involvement might sell you on paying to see “The Tourist” even more than “A”-list stars Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. After all, McQuarrie is the writer behind 1995’s Oscar-winning magnum opus by the name of “The Usual Suspects”.

Rating: 1.5/5.0

While these two films both embarked on the pursuit of conning you into one belief and then twisting you into another, “The Usual Suspects” masterfully succeeds in every fiber of its being while “The Tourist” can’t even play ball in the same league. And to even consider “The Tourist” as Hitchcockian would be a crime of blockbuster proportions bestowed upon the true man of mystery.

Though McQuarrie’s words might be found somewhere in this Angelina Jolie model fest, the ink from its two other writers (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck and Julian Fellowes) clearly snuffs away McQuarrie’s natural skill.