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Exclusive: Filming is underway on ambitious European drama series The Net, about corruption and conspiracies in the world of international soccer.

The Net will comprise four independent series, shot in their local languages, which will work as stand-alone dramas, but also as part of an interwoven narrative across 30 hours of storytelling.

The first of four seasons to get underway is Austria’s The Net – Prometheus, which will star Tobias Moretti (Bad Banks), Angel Coulby (Merlin), Amanda Abbington (Sherlock), Benjamin Sadler (Tribes of Europa) and Nicholas Goh (Skyfall). Andreas Prochaska (The Winemaker) is directing Martin Ambrosch’s (Brock) script.

Set in Austria’s mountains, the drama will center on Georg Trotter (Moretti), a doctor and former doping agent who gave up his career after a tragic car accident badly injuring his wife Diana (Coulby) and killing his beloved son. Known as notorious doping hunter and “bloodhound”, Georg is offered to run a new,...

The new projects by Sabine Derflinger, Daniel Prochaska and Barbara Albert have also received grants. The Austrian Film Institute has announced the recipients of its latest round of grants, which were decided on during its eighth funding session of 2019. The three members of the selection committee decided to split a total sum of €700,300 among 27 film projects and to hand out one grant for professional development. Among the projects chosen to receive funding is Jessica Hausner’s Club Zero, which received a script-development grant of €15,000. The Austrian filmmaker is ready to follow up on the success of her sci-fi flick Little Joe, which was part of the Cannes Film Festival’s main competition this year, with a satire. Inspired by the 13th-century fable The Pied Piper of Hamelin, in which the townspeople never pay the flute-playing rat-catcher for his services, leading him...