Walter Presents, the UK’s new on-demand foreign language drama service has acquired 61 hours of Dutch drama and over 50 hours of German drama. The service is being launched in the UK in January 2016, through a partnership between Channel 4 and Global Series Network.
German series acquired by the service include the much-anticipated Deutschland 83. Walter Iuzzolino, CCO GSN and curator for the channel described the series as “one of the strongest and most powerful pieces of storytelling we have seen in years. We think this series stands in a league of its own, totally redefining standards for excellence in global scripted programming.”
Line of Separation, another historical drama this time set in World War II, produced by the Oscar winning team behind The Lives of Others, was also snapped up, as well as historical drama and family saga Hotel Adlon.
German detective series are also amongst the acquisition mix, including hit franchise Nick’s Law and Nick’s Revenge, Inspector Borowski and crime thriller Cenk Batu distributed by Studio Hamburg.
“German drama is undergoing a true Renaissance – we believe that the outstanding quality of our acquisitions will shine a bright light on Germany as the next big creative hub for scripted content globally,” added Iuzzolino.
Walter Presents has also assembled a slate of 61 hours of scripted output from Holland. Among the key Dutch offerings is Penoza, a seminal Soprano style crime saga.
Commenting on the deals, Jason Thorp, CEO of Global Series Network said: “We have already acquired over 600 hours of drama prior to launch and will quickly build to over 1,000 hours over the next 12 months. That puts us among the most prolific buyers of non-English language drama around. Once we’ve scaled the business up across a number of territories we expect to be making a hugely positive contribution to the sector across both acquisitions and development.”
Image: Black comedy CLAN, a Belgium acquisition distributed by ZDF
