News

International TV giant, Fremantle has bought a majority stake Beach House Pictures, one of Asia’s busiest independent TV and Film production companies.

Headed by Donovan Chan and Jocelyn Little, Beach House has previously been partly owned by Canada’s Blue Ant Media group. While deal terms of the new transaction have not been disclosed, it was announced that Blue Ant has sold all of its stake.

Beach House works across both film and TV, scripted and non-scripted genres and has a wide pan-Asian reach, including China and India. It is also pioneering brand-funded programming for regional and international platforms.

The company is known for Emmy-nominated Netflix lifestyle series “Mind Your Manners” and the award-winning documentary series “Evolve,” for Amazon Prime & Curiosity.

It is currently in production on: the Chinese IMAX documentary feature “The Elephant Odyssey”; the Sung Kang (“Fast and Furious”)-led car culture series “The Ride Life,” for Insight TV,...

Andrea Scrosati, who is group COO and continental Europe CEO of Fremantle, isn’t too worried about various types of turbulence that are currently creating anxiety in the U.S. media market such as draconian cost cuts being made by juggernaut groups and the impending prospect of a Writers Guild of America strike.

Speaking in Italy at a film and TV conference organized by the Idm-Film Commission Südtirol titled “Less is More – What to Do When the Streaming Boom is Over” Scrosati noted that the effect of market consolidation in the U.S. and fear due to plunging stock market results that is prompting cost cuts at Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery certainly means that “some of the big buyers are in a conflict.”

Which, in turn, “makes it more complicated sometimes to have discussions.”

But, he said, “The amount of content that is required by consumers across the world is not going to change.

Fremantle has acquired a majority stake in Belgium’s A Team Productions the indie outfit behind hit drug gang drama “Patsers” by directorial duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah and standout short “ “Baghdad Messi.”

The company, which was founded in 2009, is headed by Kobe van Steenberghe and Hendrik Verthé and scored its first major international in 2011 with the short “Land of the Heroes” which won the International Jury Prize at the Berlinale that year.

They are also behind short “Baghdad Messi,” by Belgium-based Kurdish director Sahim Omar Kalifa, which won prizes at dozens of international fests and was shortlisted for an Academy Award in 2014.

A feature-length version of “Baghad Messi” will be released later this year.

“After intense preliminary discussions we have a very good feeling about the experienced Fremantle team including Georgette Schlick, Claud Van Gessel, Manon Van Der Hoek, Dave Heuten and Annemieke van Vliet as driving forces of the European market,...

Fremantle, the production unit of Bertelsmann-owned TV giant Rtl Group, has acquired a majority stake in A Team Productions, the Belgium-based producer of upcoming feature film Baghdad Messi and upcoming drama series Alter Ego.

Financial details weren’t disclosed.

The deal for the company, founded in 2009 and led by Kobe van Steenberghe and Hendrik Verthé, is the latest in Fremantle’s ongoing shopping spree. Over the past 18 months, its acquisitions have included U.K. producer Dancing Ledge (The Responder), Italian scripted outfit Lux Vide (Devils, Leonardo), Fabel (Bosch), Australian-American TV firm Eureka Productions (Parental Guidance, Finding Magic Mike), 12 Scandinavian labels from Nordic Entertainment Group, Ireland’s Element Pictures (Normal People, The Favourite), 72 Films (All or Nothing: Arsenal, 9/11: One Day in America) and Silvio Productions (Shadow of Truth, The Baby Daddy, Buried).

A Team Productions (Atp) had a success with the short film Land of the Heroes, which won...

Fremantle’s Documentaries division has launched Undeniable, a label dedicated to producing premium feature documentaries and series, in partnership with high-profile talent and international commissioners, Mandy Chang, Fremantle’s global head of documentaries, revealed Tuesday at Cph:dox in Copenhagen.

The label is already developing several international projects and partnerships with high-profile filmmakers, including Amy Berg, Chris Smith, and Penny Lane and Gabriel Sedgwick.

Chang said: “The launch of Undeniable further underlines our commitment and ambition to build Fremantle’s documentary output on the premium side. Working with the very best filmmakers and emerging talent, the label will provide editorial and production expertise and support in multiple genres. Importantly, it will provide a platform and freedom for creative talent to unlock and explore important issues and stories to be told.”

Undeniable’s ambition is to make “provocative, entertaining, diverse, and influential films and series that push the boundaries of storytelling and...

Fremantle has signed an exclusive first-look deal with Amy Berg, director of the 2019 docuseries The Case Against Adnan Syed on HBO.

The agreement will see Berg’s Disarming Films jointly develop a slate of documentaries with Fremantle’s global head of documentaries Mandy Chang. “We’re delighted to be joining forces with the incredibly talented team at Fremantle. Led by Mandy (Chang), we know Fremantle will not only offer fantastic support and creative freedom. Their extensive international infrastructure and expertise will provide Disarming Films with the platform to have our work seen around the world,” Berg said in a statement on Wednesday.

The veteran director is at work on a follow-up episode to the Syed HBO series, set to debut in the fall, which will follow his release from prison after his 2000 conviction in the murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee was vacated.

Berg’s deal with Fremantle’s...

Fremantle has struck an exclusive first-look deal with Oscar- and Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker Amy Berg.

Under the agreement, Berg’s Disarming Films and Fremantle will jointly develop a slate of documentaries, with Berg working closely with Fremantle’s global head of documentaries Mandy Chang to produce premium projects.

Berg’s company, Disarming Films, has been producing documentary features and docuseries for broadcast for over a decade. Berg produced “The Case Against Adnan Syed” for HBO and is currently working on a special follow-up episode set to premiere this fall. Other projects include “We Are: The Brooklyn Saints” (Netflix), “Dogs” (Netflix) and “Keep This Between Us” (Freeform). Her latest film, “Phoenix Rising,” premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2022 and on HBO and HBO Max.

The deal marks the first of its kind under Fremantle’s dedicated documentaries division. The super-indie will provide Berg with editorial and production expertise. Details about the...

Exclusive: Pig and Manodrome producer Ben Giladi is formally launching his production banner Liminal Content at this year’s Berlin Film Festival where Manodrome debuted in Competition.

The company will focus on content and filmmakers from international markets with an eye to ushering them into Hollywood.

The UK-based film and TV outfit is working in development, production and financing.

In addition to Manodrome, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Adrien Brody and Odessa Young, Giladi’s producing credits include Michael Sarnoski’s breakout debut Pig, starring Nicholas Cage, and Netflix’s cult true-crime series Shadow of Truth.

Prior to Liminal Content, Giladi (pictured below) worked with Len Blavatnik’s AI Film, which financed and produced titles including The Butler, American Animals and I, Tonya. He was also the founding partner of Israeli documentary outfit Egg Films, which was sold to Fremantle earlier this year.

Liminal’s slate includes Manodrome, which was produced alongside Gina Gammell,...

“I Remember: Daddy Did It.”

That’s a newspaper headline used in Buried, a Showtime docuseries that spotlights the reverberations of the first criminal case based on a recovered memory and analyzes how fallible and malleable the mind can be. Watch the teaser trailer above.

The premium cabler has set an October 10 premiere date for all four episodes of Buried. It centers on Eileen Franklin, who, while playing with her young daughter in 1989, suddenly had a memory of witnessing the rape and murder of her childhood best friend 20 years earlier. It led to the reopening of the long-cold case of 8-year-old Susan Nason — and in a shocking twist, Eileen told the police that she remembered the murderer was her own father, George Franklin.

Buried reveals the consequences of that fateful assertion of the subconscious and the infinite questions it sparked about the accuracy and reliability of unearthing traumatic events in the court of law.

Exclusive: Yotam Guendelman, Mika Timor and Ari Pines, the Israeli filmmakers behind Netflix true-crime doc Shadow of Truth, have struck a first-look deal with Ample Entertainment.

It comes as the 9 Months with Courteney Cox producer is ramping up its slate of premium docs. The company, which is making natural history project Kangaroos: The Story of Mala for Netflix, has series in the works with HBO, Adam McKay and Samuel L. Jackson.

It is now working up a slate of original docs with Guendelman, Timor and Pines. The group will collaborate to develop and produce a slew of stranger-than-fiction films and series in the unscripted space.

Guendelman, Timor and Pines, who recently wrapped production on a documentary for Showtime, found success with Shadow of Truth. The miniseries, which told the story of the 2006 murder of Tair Rada, a 13-year old Israeli girl, became one of Netflix’s most-watched true-crime docs in...

Exclusive: Israeli producer Egg Films, the company behind Netflix true crime doc Shadow of Truth, has unveiled the first-look at its next investigation – a serial killer doc series exploring a slew of murders in Israel in the 1970s and 1980s.

The company, which was set up by Ben Giladi, who has worked on American Animals and I, Tonya, and Yotam Guendelmen, has debuted footage from The Coastal Road Killer, which you can see above.

The multi-part series examines whether a serial killer, who was never brought to justice, was behind a string of murders that occured in Israel between the late 70s and early 80s and whether they might still be on the loose.

The series was created by Guendelman, Mika Timor and Ari Pines, the trio who worked on Shadow of Truth, the story of the 2006 murder of Tair Rada, a 13-year old Israeli girl, which became one of...

Exclusive: Fauda writer Michal Aviram and Harem star Romi Aboulafia have teamed up to write an Israeli drama that will be exec produced by The Affair co-creator Hagai Levi.

The trio are developing female detective thriller The Public, which is being produced by Egg Films’ Ben Giladi, who has worked on American Animals and I, Tonya, with Endeavor Content repping the project internationally.

The Public tells the story of an ex-Hasidic detective who returns to the community she left behind to investigate a mysterious disappearance of a teenage girl – this time as a vigilante investigator disguised as a reconverted Hasidic woman. The story is inspired by an Israeli article that exposed an industry of illegal adoptions within the Hasidic world that spans between Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Brooklyn. The story takes place between Israel and the U.S. and will play out in Hebrew, English and Yiddish.

Aviram recently wrapped...

Last year, American Vandal arrived on tiptoe, a barely promoted gift from the Netflix gods that had fans wondering, “Who drew the dicks?” One easily could have mistaken its mockumentary format for a real investigation into a high school prank that resulted in the wrongful expulsion of class clown Dylan Maxwell (Jimmy Tetro). “I was speaking to someone we recently staffed in the writers’ room who said it took him four episodes before realizing these were actors,” says Dan Perrault, who created the true-crime parody series with Tony Yacenda and executive producer Dan Lagana.