Salamander was okay, if a little silly. Now look what its success has caused – horrible rubbish that looks like it’s been creating through combining random Google searches, that’s what.
After evaluating the bibles and artistic and financial presentations submitted by the producers last Thursday, January 8, the selection committee of the FWB-RTBF Fund for Belgian television series has given the green light for the second stage development of the 3 projects selected within the framework of the call for projects launched April 2014.
Focusing on comedy, dramedy and crime or criminal court series, this call was primarily meant to diversify the productions which lend themselves for broadcast within the framework of a fixed weekly fiction window for Belgian series in prime time on public broadcaster La Une. Each series was to include ten 52-minute episodes.
The 3 projects selected for second stage development are:
- Geek et Flic by Annie Carels, Julie Bertrand and Charlotte Joulia (Left Field Ventures)
- Ouesterne by Jérémie Bidet and Jonathan Becker (El Ardilla Sprl)
- Les pionniers by Sophie Kovess Brun, Erwan Augoyard and Christophe Beaujean (To Do Today Productions).
In order to accomplish this second stage development under RTBF’s artistic supervision, the projects will receive a 200,000€ grant, paid out each time the dialog version of the consecutive episodes is approved. A sum of 30,000€ is also provided for the making of a 10 minute pilot (teaser) which illustrates the writing and the acting.
In the long run the finalized projects will complete RTBF’s supply of Belgian series, the first of which, Esprits de famille’s first season was recently concluded.
Launched as a joint initiative by the Federation Wallonia-Brussels and RTBF television, the FWB-RTBF Fund for Belgian series combines a 15 million Euro Federation and RTBF budget spread over four years (2014-2017) intended to create new room for the creation of identifiable popular French-speaking Belgian television series.
The projects:
Geek et Flic
Writers : Annie Carels, Julie Bertrand, Charlotte Joulia
Production : Left Field Ventures (John Engel)
Pitch: An ITC genius fights cyber crime at RWACCU – the Regional Walloon Anti Cyber Crime Unit – together with his field investigation team mate. Their mission: crack an online game in which real murders are commissioned, scan Darknet, where rapists buy themselves access to the webcams of single women, and track down Slender Man, the legendary virus which triggers off sordid murders…Ouestèrne
Writers : Jérémie Bidet, Jonathan Becker
Production : El Ardilla Sprl (Jean-Yves Dupuis)
Pitch : Elliott Peeters is a cop and a Brussels character in every vein. Following the bitter failure of an investigation, he has been transferred to the confines of the Ardennes. As a city dwellers who hates the countryside, he will soon discover the Ardennes as he has never seen them before, in all its darkness and weirdness. Assisted by his unlikely new colleagues, he’ll have to solve crazy, even surrealistic investigations involving all sorts of characters, one even crazier than the other.Les pionniers
Writers : Sophie Kovess-Brun, Erwan Augoyard, Christophe Beaujean
Production : To Do Today Productions (Roseanne Van Haesebrouck)
The Pioneers takes us into the daily ins and outs of a small solicitor’s office, De Facto, specialized in cyber crime. Manager is Valentine, a young solicitor who has left the comforts of a large office behind to launch herself in the conquest of this new legal Far West: the internet. To succeed, she counts as much on her charms and brains as on her team: Theo, a new technology law prodigy, and Fran, hired officially as ITC manager, unofficially for her talents as former hacker.