European TV

News and reviews about European TV

This is why we don’t want more Belgian TV shows

12 January 2015 Rob Buckley Post a comment

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.

Events

A fourth Totally Serialized is coming to London in January

16 December 2014 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Workingirls

Un village français

Paris

Lascars

Caroline Proust

Hey everyone – remember the first three Totally Serialized (one, two, three)? Well, the fourth one’s coming next month…

Totally Serialized – Season 4
29 – 31 January 2015 at Ciné Lumière

From 29 to 31 January, Ciné Lumière will hold the 4th edition of Totally Serialized, the one and only TV series festival in London. Aimed to promote and improve collaboration between the UK and France, it will showcase the best of new productions from both sides of the Channel.

Audiences will get a chance to attend exceptional preview screenings and meet creators and actors of their cult TV series.

Those last years of production have proven that TV series are more creative than ever. And more recently, the British TV industry has broken down frontiers, with international buyers moving away from a remake-centred strategy and now broadcasting the original series with subtitles. French shows such as The Returned, Braquo, Spiral, Hard and Maison Close from the French Pay TV CANAL+ have benefited from this shift, and have proven to be a success on Channel 4, FX, BBC Four and Sky Arts respectively. Just recently, Channel 4 acquired Witnesses, another French series. One of the aims of the festival is to encourage this trend.

A dedicated industry programme is organised in association with Creative Europe Desk UK and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) on 29 & 30 January aiming to foster international exchanges and co-productions in order to meet the growing demand for high-quality European TV drama. Various aspects of the constantly-evolving field of TV series, including producing, screenwriting, and financing will be covered.

The festival opening ceremony followed by an industry cocktail is organised with CANAL+.

In partnership with the Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers (SACD), British and French TV writers will gather and discuss the art of TV writing on 30 January while networking events will accompany this two-day programme. The festival also launches a speed-dating meeting between selected French and British producers organised with Europe Creative Desk MEDIA France and Ile de France Film Commission.

Festival highlights include a preview of award-winning writer Russell T. Davies’ Banana, courtesy of E4 (Channel 4) in the presence of members of the cast and crew.

Spiral enthusiasts are in for a treat as several events will be dedicated to this dark and labyrinthine Parisian crime drama. While Series 5 will be showing on BBC Four, the CANAL + CREATION ORIGINALE series will be unravelled by its screenwriter Anne Landois in a special screening of episode 1 at Ciné Lumière on 29 January. In addition, Caroline Proust, who plays Captain Laure Berthaud will give a masterclass where Spiral’s fans will learn behind-the-scene stories on 31 January. The UK premiere of Paris, a mini-series from the team behind Spiral, will top it all.

Thrillers are a strong strand in this year’s festival as we will also screen the UK Premiere of Jean-Christophe Grangé’s The Passenger with actor Jean-Hugues Anglade (Braquo). and host a masterclass with Tony Grisoni in which he will decrypt the creative process behind the acclaimed Channel 4 TV show Southcliffe.

This year’s festival will be a platform for new talent with a BAFTA masterclass on ‘Breaking and entering TV Screenwriting’ for budding writers, a marathon of new French TV comedies and fresh out of French animation schools directors with En sortant de l’école, a mini series based on Jacques Prévert’s poems.

After the jump, the programme of public events (ie the ones you can attend if you don’t work in TV). And to find out more or book tickets, visit the Totally Serialized web site

Continue reading “A fourth Totally Serialized is coming to London in January”

Nordic TV

Review: The Legacy (Arvingerne) 1×1 (UK: Sky Arts 1; Denmark: DR1)

1 December 2014 Rob Buckley 13 Comments

Arvingerne

In the UK: Wednesdays, 10pm, Sky Arts 1
In Denmark: Aired on DR1 in January 2014. Season two starts January 2015

The Danes are apparently the happiest people in the world (okay, third happiest, having dropped off the top spot this year). You wouldn’t know this from their TV, of course, which is full of serial killers and murderers (The Killing, Those Who Kill) and political intrigue (Borgen), as well as sometimes a mix of the two (The Bridge).

Even their family dramas are a bit gloomy, it turns out. A case in point is the ten-part The Legacy (Arvingerne), which like Those Who Kill has been poached away from its natural Scandi home of BBC4 in favour of AN Other Channel (Sky Arts 1 this time). The series, which comes from the same production company as The Killing, follows noted artist, free spirit and multiple-partnered Veronika Grønnegaard (Kirsten Olesen), who has a less than happy relationship with her three children, who pretty much all hate her guts, but for entirely different reasons: daughter Gro (Trine Dryholm) is miffed at being judged for ‘only’ being a secretary at Grønnegaard’s own firm and for not having any kids; Frederik (Carsten Bjørnlund) has had a bust-up so epic that he hasn’t spoken with Veronika for a year and actively tries to stop his own son from seeing her; and Emil (Mikkel Følsgaard) is off on another continent altogether.

Then there’s Signe (Marie Bach Hansen) who doesn’t even know she’s Veronika’s daughter, despite Veronika dropping into her flower shop and giving her free paintings for no well explained reasons.

But Veronika, being an artistic type, decides to screw the whole lot of them over by failing to mention she has breast cancer and then promptly dying of a stroke, leaving her much sought after house and estate to Signe to divide up between herself and her newfound siblings. That’s going to end well, isn’t it?

The extent you’re going to find The Legacy tolerable is how much you can tolerate both happiness and sadness. Despite their bad relationships with Veronika, all the families seem to be largely happy and enjoying Christmas, dressing up as Santa, having family meals together and losing track of time as they play percussion instruments together out in huts. No one’s poor and even when revelations about infidelities, bad parenting, different parentage et al crop up, no one’s dischuffed enough to even raise their voice much.

True, in case Frederik’s case, that might well be because he’s a closet psychopath whose wife is intensely freaked out by his behaviour, but he’s still a psychopath who continues joking around in his Santa outfit after getting the bad news about his mum, just to make sure his son has a nice time.

If you find all that happiness and luxury nauseating and weird, steer clear of The Legacy. Equally, if you fear family strife, dying parents, illness, old people looking like they’re dementing, upset children, will contention and slightly psychopathic sons who really want the family home, steer clear.

There’s not much by way action, which I’m sure will change with episode two, as upset siblings glare at each other and talk in hushed tones when they’re really angry (okay, maybe not psycho Frederik). But it’s a good start with different characters from the usual set you’re probably used to in such family dramas. It’ll probably be a bit ‘eat your greens’, and I suspect I’ll have to force myself to watch these, even though I did quite enjoy the first episode, but we’ll see if the show manages to up the ante in subsequent weeks. Simple scheduling maths should tell you that people should be at each other’s throats at this rate by, ooh, round about Christmas. That’ll be something to look forward to, won’t it?

News: a Star Wars teaser, Fox UK acquires Murder in the First, Matador cancelled, a Better Call Saul clip + more

1 December 2014 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Trailers

Canadian TV

European TV

UK TV

New UK TV shows

New UK TV show casting

  • Timothy Spall joins BBC One adaptation of Cider With Rosie
  • Hilary MacLean, Timothy Watson and Morfydd Clark to co-star in ITV’s adaptation of Arthur & George

US TV

US TV show casting

New US TV shows

  • Trailer for NBC’s A.D.
  • Clip from AMC’s Better Call Saul

What TV’s on at the BFI in January 2015?

27 November 2014 Rob Buckley Post a comment

It’s time for our regular look at the TV that the BFI is showing, this time in January 2015. And it’s very much a month of foreign TV, for a change. Kind of.

As well as a preview of Sky Atlantic’s Fortitude, starring the likes of Stanley Tucci and Sofie Gråbøl and filmed in Iceland, there’s a season of Eric Rohmer’s French TV documentaries and a season of British TV dramatisations of American plays, starring the likes of Eartha Kitt, John Malkovich and Eli Wallach. But just for a bit of variety, there’s a couple of plays starring Maggie Smith.

Continue reading “What TV’s on at the BFI in January 2015?”