TV Real June 2021

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JUNE 2021 EDITION

Screenings Festival / Stephen David The Anti-Vax Conspiracy Premiere / ARTE’s Florence Sala

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CONTENTS

Living History Ricardo Seguin Guise Publisher Anna Carugati Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor Chelsea Regan Managing Editor David Diehl Production & Design Director Simon Weaver Online Director Dana Mattison Senior Sales & Marketing Manager Genovick Acevedo Sales & Marketing Coordinator Andrea Moreno Business Affairs Manager

Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Real ©2021 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.tvreal.ws

Last month, on Memorial Day in the U.S., The HISTORY Channel premiered its latest landmark docudrama, The Titans That Built America, a three-parter that explores the industrialists who shaped the development of America in the transformative period between two world wars.

A follow-up to the Emmy-winning The Men Who Built America, Titans takes a slightly different approach, creator Stephen David tells TV Real in this edition. “I think the audience is so much more evolved now. I don’t know that I could have done six different main characters in one episode and the audience would have followed them. Maybe they would have, but that’s not what was happening back then. I was almost doing biographies—one character would hand off to another character. I didn’t have them all at the same time intertwined.

The audience can handle that now; they’re much more sophisticated.”

While narrative techniques are evolving, audiences remain as interested in factual content as ever. We spotlight a wealth of new and returning shows in our inaugural TV Real Screenings Festival, which you’ll find in this edition. You’ll also find an interview with Florence Sala on how ARTE Distribution is providing audiences with escapism and discovery through its lineup, and a look at the new doc The AntiVax Conspiracy.

—Mansha Daswani

GET DAILY NEWS ON THE FACTUAL BUSINESS

GETTING REAL In our inaugural TV Real Screenings Festival, we explore some of the best crime, history, lifestyle and entertainment series and specials available on the market today.

REMAKING HISTORY Stephen David talks about the craft of docudramas and his latest series, The Titans That Built America.

THE ANTI-VAX CONSPIRACY Flora Bagenal and Colette Camden introduce the new documentary, produced by Caravan Media and Quicksilver Media for Channel 4 in the U.K. and distributed by All3Media International.

READY TO EXPLORE Florence Sala on providing escapism and discovery through ARTE Distribution’s factual programming.

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Off the Fence Royals: Keeping the Crown / The Secrets to Civilisation / Viking Empires The Off the Fence highlight Royals: Keeping the Crown assesses the impact of wars, communism, commerce, tabloids and celebrity on royal families. “The global fascination around the royals is at an all-time high, and in this six-part series, we use the best colorization technology to bring these archives to life,” says Loren Baxter, head of acquisitions. The Secrets to Civilisation uses scientific data to explore past civilizations, from how they thrived to their downfalls. Viking Empires delivers new perspectives on these medieval warriors and traders.

Viking Empires

“From biographies to event history to colorized archive shows, ancient civilizations, science and technology, our appetite for these themes is always high.”

—Loren Baxter

Born in the Rockies

Terra Mater Factual Studios Born in the Rockies / The Bastard King / Katavi Set in the Rocky Mountains, Terra Mater Factual Studios’ Born in the Rockies follows the lives of several animal families struggling to survive in the challenging habitat. The Bastard King chronicles a lion’s life. “This visually stunning allegory challenges traditional documentary storytelling in an augmented clarion call for the environmental devastation that is crippling the planet and causing rapid extinctions,” says Sabine Holzer, head of specialist factual. The tentatively titled Katavi is a natural-history series that brings audiences to the national park in Tanzania.

“We’re always more than happy to talk about co-producing options for spectacular sci-fi/natural-history underwater crossover projects.”

—Sabine Holzer

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Boat Rocker’s Covid America

GETTING REAL In our inaugural TV Real Screenings Festival, we explore some of the best crime, history, lifestyle and entertainment series and specials available on the market today.

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actual buyers really do seem to be spoiled for choice these days.

While the global pandemic slowed the delivery of many scripted shows, the factual production and distribution community responded quickly to meet the needs of broadcasters and platforms.

True crime remains one of the best-selling genres in non-scripted today, and highlights featured in this festival include several new takes on a subject that continues to fascinate viewers across the globe.

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Killer Soundtrack, from Escapade Media, is a 13-part series that melds music and true crime. Natalie Lawley, managing director of the company, reports, “Killer Soundtrack takes a unique approach in examining how some of the world’s most famous crimes have impacted musicians and the music industry alike. This series provides lovers of true crime a really special and different insight into these crimes.”

A Spy in the FBI, meanwhile, from New Dominion Pictures, tells the story of Robert Hanssen. “This is the thrilling story of one of New Dominion’s A Spy in the FBI the most astounding espionage cases in all of American history,” says Kristen Eppley, executive VP of international distribution. “Former FBI agents, friends and journalists recount Hanssen’s double life and reveal what drew him to espionage and how he stayed hidden for 20 years.”

Playing on viewers’ obsession with both Escapade Media’s Killer Soundtrack

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Boat Rocker’s Chuck and the First Peoples’ Kitchen

armchair sleuthing and food, Crime Scene Kitchen delivers a new take on the beloved cooking competition genre, as bakers are tasked with decoding what type of dessert was made when all that’s left are the crumbs, flour trails and a few elusive clues. “Crime Scene Kitchen is unlike any cooking show out there, an original format with amazing baking creations, a brilliant play-along guessing game for the whole family, with Joel McHale at the center of it all, bringing hilarity at every turn,” says Cyrus Farrokh, president of Propagate International.

Also in the food space is Boat Rocker Studios’ Chuck and the First Peoples’ Kitchen, as Chef Chuck Hughes visits Indigenous communities to expand his cooking horizons. “This series offers a thrilling mix

Propagate’s Crime Scene Kitchen

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TVS’s Toque 12 Eating Inn

of outdoor adventure, diversity and discovery as our amazing host takes viewers on this enthralling journey into the culinary traditions of Indigenous communities,” says Natalie Vinet, VP of global sales for unscripted.

The Television Syndication Co.’s (TVS) Toque 12 Eating Inn heads to Asia to spotlight the region’s top five-star venues. “The Toque 12 franchise has been a successful lifestyle/high-end cooking destination series for us over the past decade,” says Mary Joyce, VP of international sales. “Eating Inn follows a similar format to Toque 12 but is a more refreshing look at some of the finest chefs based in Asia.”

TVS is also showcasing the award-winning history doc Heroes on Deck, which “tells the fascinating inside story of one of the U.S. Navy’s ingenious

TVS’s Heroes on Deck

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BBC Studios’ A Life in Ten Pictures

training operations for its aircraft pilots, whose service led to victory in WWII,” Joyce says.

Offering a unique take on history, through the lens of music, is Escapade Media’s Devolution: A Devo Theory, spotlighting the band Devo. “This is more than a biopic,” Lawley says. “Through Devo’s music and history, this documentary looks back on their predictions about our world and compares where we are today, from climate change to consumerism. They were always political to the core, and today, they think the world has a lot to answer for.”

BBC Studios is also exploring history through the lens of pop culture in A Life in Ten Pictures, about ten photographs of beloved icons, among them Freddie Mercury, Muhammad Ali, Amy Winehouse and Tupac Shakur.

Escapade Media’s Devolution: A Devo Theory

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Propagate’s LFG

From the past to the present, Boat Rocker is showcasing two productions that speak to pressing issues in the world today. Covid America explores how the country coped with the pandemic over the past year. “There’s real interest in seeing how Americans across the country have been affected and how the future might look,” Vinet says.

“We feel this candid two-part series inspires and offers optimism that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.” My Trans Journey, meanwhile, delivers “a glimpse into the lives of the transgender community, bringing us moving stories of individuals transitioning.”

Propagate Content is launching LFG, from award-winning directors Andrea Nix Fine and Sean Fine. “The U.S. women’s soccer team are not only

Boat Rocker’s My Trans Journey

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New Dominion’s FantomWorks

fighting for pay equality but respect as professional athletes,” says Farrokh.

“The film captures it brilliantly as told by Megan Rapinoe and her teammates; we hope change will follow soon.”

We also have some fun lifestyle properties on offer in the TV Real Screenings Festival. There’s New Dominion’s FantomWorks, set in an automotive restoration shop. “With years of automotive restoration experience in addition to the qualities of discipline and precision Dan Short acquired in the military, the FantomWorks team runs a busy production pipeline to thoroughly refurbish some of America’s favorite rides,” says Eppley.

Boat Rocker’s Relative Race is a unique competition/travel show in which four teams take a ten-day journey across the country to discover new

Boat Rocker’s Relative Race

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BBC Studios’ Amazing Hotels

relatives and compete for a $50,000 grand prize using the contestant’s DNA as a road map. “With a surging interest in genealogy and family history in recent years, Relative Race shows the incredible impact that finding previously unknown family members can have, wrapped up in an exciting and hugely popular reality race format,” Vinet says.

Propagate Content is showcasing six seasons of FOX’s hit version of The Masked Singer. “The U.S. finished tape continues to perform in local markets as the spectacle and production values are second to none,” Farrokh says.

Amazing Hotels, from BBC Studios, takes viewers behind the scenes at some of the world’s most spectacular properties, with a third season now available.

Propagate’s The Masked Singer

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A+E Networks’ The Titans That Built America.

Remaking History Stephen David on his unique approach to making factual docudramas. By Mansha Daswani

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utting the finishing touches on his three-part event miniseries The Titans That Built America for The HISTORY Channel, Stephen David was reminded that history does frequently repeat itself. Using a mix of scripted drama, archival footage and talking heads, The Titans That Built America chronicles the stories of Pierre du Pont, Walter Chrysler, J.P. Morgan Jr., Henry Ford and William Boeing, fierce rivals who ultimately combined their resources to help America win the Second World War. “We were making a story that happens after a pandemic, with a

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roaring 1920s, a market crash and then a depression, a new deal and a wealth tax,” David says. With President Biden working to put in place his American Jobs Plan amid the ongoing impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, the parallels to today were clear to David.

Produced by Banijay-owned Stephen David Entertainment and distributed by A+E Networks, The Titans That Built America serves as a follow-up to the Emmy-winning The Men Who Built America, looking at the development of the country from 1918 to 1945. Asked how he set out to compress 50 years of

“I put note cards over all the walls. Then, I use a string and try to find a story.” —Stephen David history into a three-part event, David says, “I have everyone do research; tell me everything that happened over those 50 years. I put note cards over all the walls. And then, I use a string and start to try to find a story. And I ask more questions. You have to know everything to figure out what story you’re going to tell.”

David pioneered the factual docudrama genre and his own approach has changed since The Men Who Built America. “I don’t know that I could have done six different main characters in one episode and the audience would have followed them. That’s not what was happening back then. I was almost doing biographies. I didn’t have them all at the same time intertwined. The audience can handle that now; they’re much more sophisticated.”

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The Anti-Vax Conspiracy

By Kristin Brzoznowski

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ith Covid-19 vaccines rolling out around the globe, the origins and methods of the anti-vaccination movement are a timely exploration. The documentary The Anti-Vax Conspiracy, produced by Caravan Media and Quicksilver Media for Channel 4 in the U.K., delves deep into the motivations around the movement, exploring its unsubstantiated claims and fake science, as well as the coordinated and systematic efforts to generate as much money as possible—to support their message, and sometimes, for activists’ own personal gain.

The doc began brewing well before the Covid-19 vaccines were a talking point. “I first started looking at the idea almost two years ago,” says Flora Bagenal, producer of The Anti-Vax Conspiracy. “It had been sitting on ice for a bit, but then Covid

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hit, and one of the first things that happened was that the antivaxxers started going into overdrive. The project very quickly ramped up.”

The team made its way to the U.S., securing special travel permissions amid coronavirus lockdowns and quarantine protocols, to speak with hardcore anti-vaxxers—but also those who challenge the idea of anti-vaccination messages in a very personal way.

“We shot it ourselves, and it meant that it was quite intimate,” says Colette Camden, director. “We were able to hang out with people and allow their stories to unfold. There wasn’t the very formal rigidity of having a crew. It’s quite intimately crafted, but we’ve gone for a cinematic look even though it is self-shot.”

“We feel very strongly that the story is only just beginning.”

—Flora Bagenal

All3Media International is taking the documentary out to the global market, and both Camden and Bagenal are adamant that its messages should resonate in every country across the world.

“We feel very strongly that the story is only just beginning,” says Bagenal. “The anti-vaccination movement has grown and evolved in a way over Covid-19 that has strengthened its message.... We can see from the messages that they’re sharing with each other that their plan is very much for global domination. They want to seed doubt...and they’ve seen ways to do that.”

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ARTE Distribution’s The Fire Under the Mediterranean Sea.

READY TO EXPLORE Florence Sala on the importance of providing escapism and discovery through ARTE Distribution’s factual programming.

By Kristin Brzoznowski

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he theme of discovery is one that runs through a large swath of factual genres, and content with this exploratory backbone has been in high demand as of late, according to Florence Sala, head of ARTE Distribution.

“The leading programs are ones that have never been seen before; that go into never-shown places and highlight new experiences,” she says. “Natural history and animal documentaries are also attractive for the audience, with a new shift toward dramastyle storytelling. This narrative shift can also be noticed among history and social-history factual.”

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ARTE Distribution has also seen a growing interest in health and wellbeing documentaries. In terms of social themes, there is a worldwide appetite for documentaries about female empowerment and minorities’ issues and stories.

“A few trends are rising due to the world’s situation,” Sala says.

“Escapism is the keyword for factual during the pandemic. People want to leave behind 2020 and go for uplifting, aspirational, escapist and outlandish programs.”

Archives, in particular, have proven to be key. “Authors and directors have risen to the challenge of finding innovative storytelling to tell gripping narratives, to be as immersive as scripted dramas,” says Sala.

“Escapism is the keyword for factual during the pandemic.”

—Florence Sala

Archives, in particular, have proven to be key for factual producers. “Authors and directors have risen to the challenge of finding innovative storytelling to tell gripping narratives, to be as immersive as scripted dramas,” says Sala.

To meet these needs and trends, ARTE Distribution has gathered a strong lineup of premium factual, she adds. This includes The Fire Under the Mediterranean Sea, which Sala calls a “breathtaking, never-seen-before documentary that mixes discovery, nature and science.”

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