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Max Original international series Spy/Master debuts Friday, May 19 with the first two episodes, which had their world premiere at Berlin Film Festival’s Berlinale Series in February. Created by Adina Sădeanu and Kirsten Peters, the six-part espionage drama series starring Alec Secăreanu continues with one new episode debuting weekly leading up to the season finale on June 16.

Logline: Spy/Master is set during the height of the Cold War and covers a week in the life of fictional character Victor Godeanu, played by Secăreanu, the right-hand man and closest advisor to Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. However, Godeanu is also a secret agent for the Kgb and must escape Romania and Ceaușescu before his cover is blown. With only one shot at staying alive, he uses a diplomatic trip to Germany as a springboard to the United States. Helped by an undercover Stasi agent and former flame played by Svenja Jung (“Deutschland...

Warner Bros. Discovery’s European operation continues to take shape, with Hannes Heyelmann today unveiling his German management team. The shake-up sees the departure of Discovery Communications Deutschland Deputy Managing Director Alberto Horta.

Heyelmann, a long-time Warner exec who has overseen original content production in Germany for the company for several years, was named EVP and General Manager of Warner Bros. Discovery Germany, Switzerland and Austria in June and has set his top team soon after Antonio Ruiz revealed his line-up of UK and Ireland execs.

Notable posts go to Marion Rathmann (free-tv and pay entertainment channels and streaming programming), Magdalena Prosteder (cinema productions chief) and Anke Greifeneder (original production for Warner TV channels and HBO Max). See below for the full line-up.

“In the past few weeks I have been working on the future strategy for Warner Bros. Discovery in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, including the formation of the management team for our region,...

WarnerMedia and Rtl Deutschland are partnering for the first time on the six-part co-production “Two Sides of the Abyss.”

Rtl Deutschland has secured first-run rights to the Warner TV original for Germany, where it will initially stream on its newly renamed Rtl Plus platform, as well as free-tv rights thereafter.

Warner TV Serie (formerly TNT Serie) will offer the series on pay TV in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, while WarnerMedia streaming platform HBO Max will launch the series as a Max Original in 61 territories across the U.S., Latin America and Europe. WarnerMedia International Television Distribution will handle international distribution outside of these territories.

Created and written by Kristin Derfler, “Two Sides of the Abyss” follows Wuppertal police officer Luise Berg (Anne Ratte-Polle) as she heads for an inevitable catastrophe after her daughter’s murderer is released early from prison. A psychologically complex game of confusion begins in which the boundaries of guilt and innocence,...

WarnerMedia Germany has confirmed that Ricky Gervais is among the cast of its comedy series Greenlight – German Genius, which is now shooting in Berlin.

The eight-part TV satire stars Kida Khodr Ramadan (4 Blocks) as himself. It recounts a dramatized version of events after Ramadan’s real-life Twitter exchange with Gervais in 2018, in which the British comedian praised Ramadan’s performance in 4 Blocks.

In Greenlight, Ramadan convinces Gervais to give him the rights for a German adaptation of Extras. However, as he attempts to progress the show to production, he comes up against the fact that the Germans aren’t particularly known for their humor, and that there are not many international stars in the country.

Also in the cast are a host of known German actors, musicians, and comedians, including: Detlev Buck, Frederick Lau, Tom Schilling, Veysel Gelin, Olli Schulz, Heike Makatsch, Maria Furtwängler, Sascha Geršak, Katrin Bauerfeind, Britta Hammelstein,...

Ricky Gervais has boarded “Greenlight – German Genius” a new series from WarnerMedia Germany inspired by one of his tweets from 2019.

The 8-episode series, which has started shooting in Berlin, satirises the German television industry.

Two years ago the “After Life” writer and actor sent a public message via Twitter to German actor Kida Ramadan praising his portrayal of character Toni Hamady in series “4 Blocks.”

“Congratulations,” wrote Gervais. “Another masterpiece.”

In a case of art imitating life, Ramadan and Gervais will now appear as fictional versions of themselves in “Greenlight – German Genius,” in which Ramadan convincing Gervais to let him make a German adaptation of his hit series “Extras” after the comedian sends Ramadan a tweet praising his performance in “4 Blocks.”

However, Ramadan hits a stumbling block when he realizes there aren’t any international celebrities in Germany to cameo in the adaptation all while trying to navigate the...

W&b Television, the German indie behind Netflix show Dark and the hit German drama 4 Blocks, has been commissioned to make a series tracing the beginnings of German hip-hop for TNT Serie.

Turner Germany’s series channel has ordered six-part series Almost Fly, which will be written and directed by Florian Gaag, who made the 2006 graffiti movement feature documentary Wholetrain.

Almost Fly is set in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin wall and centers on three schoolmates with big dreams whose lives are changed when they are introduced to hip-hop through a nearby U.S. Army base.

Hannes Heyelmann, managing director of the WarnerMedia channels in Germany, said: “With Almost Fly we are exploring a coming-of-age story in a contemporary historical context, capturing the lifestyle of the early 90s for the first time.”

The show will go into production in summer next year. Executive producers are Quirin Berg, Max Wiedemann and Elena Gruschka,...

TBS is set to remake German comedy Arthur’s Law – the first original comedy from Turner’s German network TNT Comedy.

The U.S. cable network has secured the rights to the project, which is known locally as Arthurs Gesetz, from its parent company. It has picked up the format rights to the series as well as the rights to run the German version with subtitles.

The comedy follows unemployed Arthur Ahnepol, played by Jan Josef Liefers, who ekes out a bleak existence. Drawn from the strains of his unhappy marriage and bored to death, he makes a morbid plan: he wants his obnoxious wife to die. With the money from the life insurance there’s no obstacle for a restart with his beloved mistress. But an unwritten law dominates the life of the unlucky fellow: every problem solved by Arthur has a far worse effect. And so, he sets...

Turner’s hit German gangster saga 4 Blocks has been recommissioned for a third and final season.

The show, which airs internationally on Amazon Prime Video, has been reordered for a third season for six episodes by TNT Serie, Turner Germany’s series channel. The show is produced by Wiedemann & Berg Television, producers of Netflix’s Dark. Shooting starts in spring 2019 and it will air in winter 2019.

The drama stars Kida Khodr Ramadan as the leader of a crime family and drug cartel in Berlin, who is forced to live an ordinary life after his brother is arrested.

4 Blocks was developed by screenwriting trio Hanno Hackfort, Bob Konrad, and Richard Kropf, as well as by Marvin Kren, who also directed season one. The second season was directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel (Der Untergang) and Özgür Yıldırım. Marvin Kren acted as executive producer alongside Quirin Berg and Max Wiedemann,...

Exclusive: Companies from Panama, Us, Middle East to debut at Berlin’s Efm; Matthijs Wouter Knol discusses his first six months as market director.

Companies from the Us, Canada, the Middle East, Turkey and Spain are among first-time exhibitors at this year’s European Film Market (Efm, Feb 5-13), which will be the first under new director Matthijs Wouter Knol.

The Panama Film Commission’s Stephan Proano and international project manager Gabriel Padilla will attend Berlin to man their stand in the Marriott Hotel.

The Arab Cinema Center umbrella at the same venue will host participants including the first pan-Arab independent studio and consultancy Mad Solutions; Egyptian production company Film Clinic; production outfit The Producers, founded by director Hadi El Bagoury and executive producer Hani Osama; Screen Institute Beirut; the Malmö Arab Film Festival; and Cairo-based production and post-production house X Rated Studio.

Other market debutants with their own stands/offices will include Us firms Applied Art Productions...