News

Exclusive: At this month’s London TV Screenings, Keshet International (Ki) will launch international sales on a global thriller it is describing as its “most ambitious drama in terms of budget and scale” to date.

Inspired by true events, Keshet 12’s Unconditional from Dana Idisis charts how a mother-daughter vacation turns into a nightmare when 25-year-old Gali (Talia Linne Ronn) is arrested for drug smuggling in Moscow. Her mother, Orna (Liraz Chamami), refuses to accept the charges— but her fight for Gali’s freedom pulls her into a deadly web of crime and corruption.

The series was announced a couple years back on a weighty Keshet scripted slate and the Israeli major’s distribution boss Kelly Wright describes the show that filmed in India, Georgia and Israel as its “most ambitious drama in terms of budget and scale.” Sales of both finished tape and format will launch with an episode...

Netflix has picked up Bad Boy, the Israeli series from original Euphoria creator Ron Leshem and Hagar Ben-Asher that is North Road’s first international co-pro.

The streamer, which has a big library of Israeli content, will launch Bad Boy globally after its first run on Israeli network Hot early next year. The show launched on Hot this week.

Unveiled in March 2023, Bad Boy tells the story of Dean, who is imprisoned in a cruel juvenile detention facility. While in jail, Dean bonds with Zoro, a grim and mysterious teenage prisoner serving time for murder. He also learns to harness his unique intelligence and creativity and, 20 years later, these traits define Dean as a star comedian, while his time in jail is a secret threatening to resurface and tear his life apart.

The show stars Daniel Chen, Havtamo Farda and Guy Manster. Leshem is showrunner and Ben-Asher is writer-director.

Bad Boy...

Israeli surrogacy drama “A Body That Works” has been renewed for a second season.

“A Body That Works” (titled “Goof Shlishi” in Hebrew) was Israel’s highest rating drama of 2023. The series, which stars Rotem Sela (“The Baker and the Beauty”) and “Fauda’s” Lior Raz, tells the story of a couple struggling with infertility who enlist a surrogate.

Season 2 will pick up directly after the last season, with Ellie (Sela) and Ido (Yehuda Levi) separated and co-parenting their son, who was delivered via surrogate Chen (Gal Malka). Raz plays a love interst.

Sela and Malka jointly won Series Mania’s best actress award at last year’s festival for their roles in the series.

All four leads return for the six-episode second season along with the creative team, comprised of director Shay Capon (“The Writer”) and executive producers Shira Margalit and Elad Koperman.

“Relationships and love will once again...

Exclusive: Netflix has picked up hit Israeli drama A Body that Works, which has sold to nearly 100 territories.

Last year’s top-rated Israeli drama, according to seller Keshet International (Ki), has been acquired by the streamer in Europe, Latin America and the U.S., as well as non-exclusively in Israel. It is the latest boon for the fruitful relationship between Netflix and Israeli networks, which has seen the streamer bring local hits like Shtisel to the world.

Elsewhere, A Body that Works has sold to AMC Networks International in Portugal and Spain, CBC in Canada and Sbs in Australia, while selling in a further 19 territories.

Starring Rotem Sela (The Baker and the Beauty) and Yehuda Levi (Fire Dance) as a childless couple who enlist the help of a surrogate (Gal Malka), the intimate drama – which also stars Lior Raz (Fauda) – stimulated national debate in Israel about fertility, family, and the autonomy of women’s bodies.

“Shtisel” star Ayelet Zurer is set to lead a new Israeli drama titled “The Best Worst Thing.”

In the new show Zurer plays Dr Amalia Levi, a breast cancer specialist who finds a suspicious lump in her chest. As she begins her own breast cancer journey, this time as a patient, she is unexpectedly joined by Micha Hadad (Amos Tamam), a male politician who has also just been diagnosed.

“As they embark on a shared treatment journey together, fuelled by hope and fear, they discover they have more in common than a disease,” reads the logline. “Under the shadow of a ticking clock, Amalia and Micha discover that the worst thing that could possibly happen to them is also the best thing that has ever happened to them.”

The eight-part series, which will premiere on Feb. 19 in Israel on local network Keshet 12, was created by Rona Tamir, Tal Granit, and Sharon Maymon.

Exclusive: The Israeli producers and writers guilds have been in talks with Series Mania bosses after the festival’s chief said it was “impossible” for a show from the country to be included in its official selection this year.

Sources from the Israeli sector reacted with alarm and contacted Deadline after reading the quote from Laurence Herszberg. Since then, we understand the Israeli Producers Association (Ipa) and Screenwriters Guild of Israel have sought clarification, after a local Israeli news site reported that Israeli broadcasters and producers had, in fact, submitted numerous shows.

The issue began when, unveiling the competition participants earlier this week, Herszberg claimed that “in Israel, many ongoing projects were shut down, making it impossible for Series Mania to include an Israeli production” for the first time in the fest’s history. She added that the festival had been affected by “several international crises” including the Israel-Hamas War and Russo-Ukrainian War.

Israeli drama “Fauda” is returning for a fifth season, Variety can confirm.

Ilan Sigal, CEO of Israeli network Yes, revealed the news earlier this week, according to the Jerusalem Post. The newspaper reported that Sigal appeared alongside the show’s co-creator, Avi Issacharoff, at Yes’s annual “Bar Series” event to share the news.

Netflix streams “Fauda” internationally. The fourth season of the show, which was also meant to be the last, released earlier this year.

According to Israeli publication Ynet, “Fauda” was picked up for a fifth season following protracted negotiations between the network and the creators. No details have been confirmed in terms of the season’s plot or when it might air.

Issacharoff, an Israeli journalist, developed the hit series alongside the show’s star Lior Raz almost 10 years ago. It first premiered in 2015, telling the story of Doron (played by Raz), a commander in the Israeli army.

Format

BBC Studios has licensed the immensely popular “Top Gear” format to Finland’s Nelonen channel and Ruutu streaming service to create a Finnish adaptation of the long-running and Emmy-winning series. The Finnish adaptation will be presented by comedian, musician and author Ismo Leikola, former elite Ice hockey winger Teemu Selänne and actor Christoffer Strandberg. It will air in the spring of 2024.

Set in the world of cars and driving, the show will see Leikola, Selänne and Strandberg compete in various car-related challenges to determine who among them is the ultimate driver.

The license to Finland is the 11th adaptation of the format globally. “Top Gear” began in the U.K. in 1977, where it has run for 33 seasons. However, the U.K. version has been paused after host Andrew Flintoff was involved in an accident on the show’s test track in December 2022.

Appointment

Keshet International’s British production arm Keshet U.

Keshet International has closed deals with Dpg Media (Belgium), TV 2 (Denmark) and TV4 in Finland and Sweden for the hidden camera investigation “Undercover: Sexual Harassment – The Truth,” which debuted on Channel 4 in December.

Produced by Kalel Productions, the film sees investigative reporter Ellie Flynn revealing the true extent of sexual harassment towards women of all ages in the U.K. Accompanied by hidden crew members, she goes undercover, enduring countless harassment online and in real-life.

“These are stories that women tell one another in their friendship groups or on social media. I wanted to show that feeling,” Flynn tells Variety.

“Sometimes, when you try to explain how sexual harassment feels or the impact it has on you, people – and by people I think often men – just don’t get it. It was trying to highlight that, [saying]: ‘This is why we are scared.’ It can happen anytime you go out.

Apple TV+ thriller “Suspicion” is set to hit the sales block in Cannes at this year’s MipTV market.

Keshet International has revealed that the eight-part series starring Uma Thurman will headline its drama slate at the spring TV market in France, which kicks off on April 17. The Israeli TV distributor will shop linear rights for the series.

Apple TV+ commissioned Keshet U.K. to produce “Suspicion,” which is based on the popular Israeli series “False Flag” and launched on the service in February 2022. Its sales foray marks one of the rare instances where an original on a streamer (that’s still available globally on the platform) has been sold on the open market for linear rights.

In recent years, major SVODs have been focused on keeping originals on their own platforms for extensive periods in order to drive subscribers. However, in this case, it’s Keshet International that holds...

Dry Spell Extended

ITV has commissioned a second season of the comedy-drama series “The Dry” for Itvx. It will be produced by Element Pictures (part of Fremantle), in association with Fís Eireann/Screen Ireland and ITV Studios, in partnership with RTÉ. Nancy Harris (Dates) and acclaimed director Paddy Breathnach will return to helm the second season, which will stream exclusively on Itvx next year. The first season was made available to view for free on the streamer last month. With the story picking up seven months after the end of the first, Roisin Gallagher will return as recovering alcoholic Shiv Sheridan, alongside regular cast members from the first series. Further casting details will be confirmed later. in due course.

Emma Norton, Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe will serve as executive producers for Element Pictures, alongside Nancy Harris and Paddy Breathnach. ITV Studios is handling global distribution of the show.

Suspicious...

With Series Mania 2023 coming to a close, the event’s founder and general director Laurence Herszberg announced the winners of the Series Mania Festival today.

”We would first like to thank the public and the professionals who attended this edition, which brought together more than 85,000 participants for the Festival and 3,800 participants from 64 countries for the Forum. We are delighted to announce our prize list and figures that have far exceeded our expectations,” said Herszberg.

With the rise of streaming across the world, Series Mania has become one of the most attractive events in the global TV calendar. It’s largely looked at as a place where writers, distributors and producers can liase with each other in a less formal setting than compared to a TV sales market. It includes not just the festival, the Forum, key conferences, keynotes, and pitching sessions.

This year the festival screened 54 unreleased series, with 32 world premieres and 10 international premieres.

The Iranian series The Actor from director Nima Javidi picked up the top Grand Prize jury award at Series Mania, the international TV festival that wrapped in Lille, France on Friday night.

The drama from Iran is led by the Venice best actor winner Navid Mohammadzadeh and follows two down and out actors struggling to make ends meet as they run a derelict theater in Tehran with wealthy Iranians as patrons.

The international jury, led by screenwriter and producer Lisa Joy, also gave its best actor trophy to Michael Sheen for his performance the U.K. series Best Interests, while the best actress prize went to Margot Mancilhon for her star turn in the French series Haven of Grace.

The Series Mania international jury also gave the best writing trophy to John Kâre Raake for The Fortress series from Norway.

In other prize giving, the International Panorama jury, led by French writer Herve Le Tellier,...

Lille, France — Headed by a commanding performance from Navid Mohammadzadeh, superbly shot and packing arguably the best opening scene of any series in Series Mania main competition, Navid Javidi’s “The Actor” won the Grand Prize at Series Mania on Friday night.

The top Series Mania award for the “The Actor” also proves vindication for the Festival which this year has broadened its geographical reach in an effort to discover new narrative modes and styles. Consistently subordinating narrative to mood, “The Actor” certainly wins on that score.

Main scribe John Kåre Raake (“The Quake”) and co-scribe Linn-Jeanethe Kyed (“Bø”) scooped best writing for “The Fortress,” a banner upcoming Viaplay title produced by Norway’s Maipo Film and sold by TrustNordisk, which delivers a telling political cautionary tale for our times, a chic isolationist parable thriller set in an alternative Norway which has built a wall to keep foreigners out. When a virus strikes,...

Event wrapped in Lille against backdrop of nationwide unrest in France.

Navid Javidi’s The Actor starring Navid Mohammadzadeh was awarded the International Competition grand prize at 2023 Series Mania in the first year in which content from Iran participated in the event in Lille, France.

Series Mania founder and general director Laurence Herszberg summed up the event as it came to a close, noting that this year’s edition drew more than 85,000 festival participants – representing a significant increase on last year’s 70,000 – and around 3,800 from 64 countries for the industry forum.

Besides Iran, debutant participating countries included Japan, Argentina, UAE, Turkey,...

Israeli surrogacy drama series “A Body That Works” has an international trailer, shared with Variety by Keshet International, which handles distribution, in the run-up to the title’s Series Mania international premiere.

Created by Shira Hadad, Dror Mishani and Shay Capon, who also directs, the series shows one couple’s struggle to get pregnant. After suffering another miscarriage, Ellie and Ido make a life-changing decision: it’s time to consider surrogacy.

The eight-episode show is produced by Kuma Studios and broadcasted by Keshet 13 where it has proved a big hit in Israel, building ratings episode-by-episode, a rare TV phenomenon in the country.

“In Israel, surrogacy has been legal since 1997. However, unlike the U.S., it’s monitored by the state. You can’t do it just because you don’t want to get stretch marks. You have to prove there is a medical problem that prevents you from getting pregnant,...

Series Mania has always been about discovery: Of drama series as an art form, in its early days from launch in 2009; then of key players on a burgeoning international premium TV scene.

Series Mania’s International Panorama now catches a new wave of creatives transitioning from film to scripted TV – Israel’s Yaron Shani with “Innermost,” Spain’s Isaki Lacuesta and Isa Campo with episodes of “Apagón”; and highlights notable emerging auteurs: Denmark’s Kasper Møller Rask, Canada’s Alexis Durand-Brault, Spain’s Fran Araujo, Pakistan’s Assim Abassi and Germany’s Jakob and Jonas Weydemann.

But for having already bowed at national festivals, some of the 12 titles below could well have been in the running for a Competition berth.

Below, the Series Mania’s rich 2023 International Panorama:

“Apagón,” (“Offworld,” Spain)

One of Variety’s Best International TV Shows of 2022, a realistic, sophisticated disaster thriller from Movistar+ and Buendía Estudios...

The 2023 London Screenings, which unfold Feb. 27 to March 3, take place in an increasingly crowded international TV calendar. The event kicks off just days after the Berlinale Series Market, overlaps with the BBC Studios Showcase and precedes Series Mania and MipTV.

The week-long showcase has established itself as a key place to acquire the best of British and international programming. All major global TV distributors, spanning 26 companies, have a plethora of content to offer across genres and formats, and a series of screenings, meetings and events have been lined up.

To help you cut through the slates, Variety has surveyed the goods from key international distributors. Here are our picks of 15 shows that will whet buyers’ appetites.

A Body That Works

(Keshet International)

“A Body That Works”

An intense triangle involving love, jealousy, desire and selflessness sees a childless couple enlist the help of a surrogate to conceive. At the heart...

Exclusive: Keshet International (Ki) has struck its first ever natural history content deal with Finland’s Mrp Matila Röhr Productions, along with picking up a Channel 4 sexual harassment doc.

Ahead of this month’s London Screenings, the Israeli powerhouse has taken on four feature-length docs, more than 70 shorts and two ‘making of’ shows, led by Mrp feature Tale of the Sleeping Giants. Filmed over three years in Lapland, the pic recently opened in Finnish cinemas and follows the lives of animals such as wolverines, reindeer, foxes, weasels, bears and humpback whales.

Ki has also taken on Mrp’s older features Tale of a Forest and Tale of a Lake, along with 2019’s Nature Symphony.

Anke Stoll, Ki’s SVP of Acquisitions and Co-productions, said the outfit is “in the process of expanding our catalog” and will “leverage the incredible archive footage to produce new titles for a growing market...

The world premieres of Cédric Klapisch’s Amazon Prime Video show “Greek Salad” and Anna Winger’s Netflix series “Transatlantic” will open and close the 2023 edition of Series Mania.

The event will feature masterclasses with “Succession” star Brian Cox, “Westworld” producer Lisa Joy, who also will preside over the international competition jury, Klapisch and renowned French actors Cécile de France (“Lost Illusions”) and Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu (“Emily in Paris”).

Series in the international competition this year include Arte’s “Grace of Heaven” (France/Belgium); Apple TV+, France Télévisions, Hulu Japan’s “Drops of God” (France/U.S./Japan); Paramount+’s “Fleeting Lies” (Spain); Mega TV’s “Milky Way” (Greece); Reshet 13’s “Red Skies” (Israel); Filimo, Namava’s “The Actor” (Iran); Viaplay’s “The Fortress” (Norway); and Prime Video’s “The Power” (U.S.)

The international jury, which also includes French actor Emmanuelle Béart, British showrunner-screenwriter Chris Chibnall (“Broadchurch”), French-British singer-songwriter and actor Lou Doillon,...

Keshet Media Group have unveiled their upcoming slate, which includes a new series starring “Fauda’s” Lior Raz.

Raz is set to star alongside Rotem Sela (“The Baker and the Beauty”) and Yehuda Levi (“Fire Dancer”) plus newcomer Gal Malaka in “A Body That Works.” The eight-part drama, titled “Goof Shlishi” in Hebrew, sees a couple hire a surrogate as they seek to have a child.

“[‘A Body That Works’] is an emotionally charged tale of two women and a man, all connected by a bond so powerful they cannot escape one another, even when there is nothing they’d rather do more,” reads the logline. “This is a drama about relationships and parenthood, whose heroes deal with the conflicting desire to become parents alongside the fear parenthood stirs in them. It is also a tale about the deceptive power dynamics between the haves and the have-nots, between the takers and the givers.”

Shira Hadad...