Cannes — The 2nd Canneseries festival ended Wednesday. Variety asks what this year’s second edition says about the current state of high-end drama series production.
1.Comedy Ruled, And Won
The 2nd Canneseries had no competition title with the profile of “Killing Eve,” its standout last year. A world premiere screened out of competition as the last series in the whole festival, where it met with some thunderous applause, “Years & Years,” a BBC-Canal Plus-HBO production showrun by U.K. industry heavyweight Russell T. Davies, does have that stature, and the potential to be one of the major drama series of 2019.
The Canneseries Competition ran a wide gamut – from genre (“Outbreak”) to drama (“Bauhaus”), drama-thrillers (“The Twelve”), near future low-fi (“The Feed”), dramedies and comedies, Canneseries artistic director Albin Levi pointed out.
As far as its competition goes, the festival’s major achievement this year was its bet on...
1.Comedy Ruled, And Won
The 2nd Canneseries had no competition title with the profile of “Killing Eve,” its standout last year. A world premiere screened out of competition as the last series in the whole festival, where it met with some thunderous applause, “Years & Years,” a BBC-Canal Plus-HBO production showrun by U.K. industry heavyweight Russell T. Davies, does have that stature, and the potential to be one of the major drama series of 2019.
The Canneseries Competition ran a wide gamut – from genre (“Outbreak”) to drama (“Bauhaus”), drama-thrillers (“The Twelve”), near future low-fi (“The Feed”), dramedies and comedies, Canneseries artistic director Albin Levi pointed out.
As far as its competition goes, the festival’s major achievement this year was its bet on...
- 4/11/2019
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Cannes — Playing Official Competition at Canneseries, “Studio Tarara’ protagonist Ricki Boelsens, late 40s but with a hugely lived-in face, looks at himself in the mirror. There’s a poster of him as a young man starring in King Lear. Now he’s just checked out of hospital after a drink and cocaine bender at a party on studio comedy sketch show “Studio Tarara.” He can hardly remember his lines.
So is he the dead person who jumped or was pushed off the studio roof prompting the grainy bluish-noir nighttime scenes of shocked studio employees which begins every episode of the show?
Details of the victim’s identity are teased to the audience in Flemish series “Studio Tatara,” along with Ricki’s descent into hell as he’s replaced on the show by another actor, part of a more general spiral of self-destruction. Ricky’s addicted to alcohol and drugs – – fellow-comedian Sandra to sex.
So is he the dead person who jumped or was pushed off the studio roof prompting the grainy bluish-noir nighttime scenes of shocked studio employees which begins every episode of the show?
Details of the victim’s identity are teased to the audience in Flemish series “Studio Tatara,” along with Ricki’s descent into hell as he’s replaced on the show by another actor, part of a more general spiral of self-destruction. Ricky’s addicted to alcohol and drugs – – fellow-comedian Sandra to sex.
- 4/7/2019
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Madrid — Be-Entertainment has acquired international distribution rights to Canneseries competition contender “Studio Tarara,” the scripted series debut of Tim Van Aelst who has won non-scripted or comedy Intl. Emmy Awards in 2018 (“Did You Get the Message”?), 2014 (“What If?”) and 2011 (“Benidorm Bastards”).
The last sparked an NBC remake, “Betty White’s Off Their Rockers,” developed by Van Aelst.
To be introduced to buyers at MipTV, “Studio Tarara” also marks the move into fiction for Be Entertainment, headed by former Talpa Global sales head Gepke Nederlof, and set up in 2017 as a non-fiction format company.
Written by Van Aelst, David Vennix (“What If?”) and directed by Van Aelst and Wim Guedens, “Studio Tarara” is also the latest show from Antwerp-based Shelter, where Van Aelst and Vennix and based.
Produced by Shelter/Toreador. Proximus and Medialaan-owned Flemish commercial channel Vtm, “Studio Tarara” kicks in with a police car arriving at night in August 1993 at “Studio Tarara,...
The last sparked an NBC remake, “Betty White’s Off Their Rockers,” developed by Van Aelst.
To be introduced to buyers at MipTV, “Studio Tarara” also marks the move into fiction for Be Entertainment, headed by former Talpa Global sales head Gepke Nederlof, and set up in 2017 as a non-fiction format company.
Written by Van Aelst, David Vennix (“What If?”) and directed by Van Aelst and Wim Guedens, “Studio Tarara” is also the latest show from Antwerp-based Shelter, where Van Aelst and Vennix and based.
Produced by Shelter/Toreador. Proximus and Medialaan-owned Flemish commercial channel Vtm, “Studio Tarara” kicks in with a police car arriving at night in August 1993 at “Studio Tarara,...
- 4/1/2019
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Paris — Netflix Original Series “How To Sell Drugs Online (Fast),” BBC One-Canal Plus-HBO drama “Years & Years” and Amazon/Liberty Global order “The Feed” look like potential highlights at a 2nd Canneseries festival whose much enlarged U.S. presence also takes in Starz double-bill “The Rook” and “Now Apocalypse” and AMC’s “NOS4A2.”
Added to the announced Canal Plus-Studiocanal “Vernon Subutex,” Fremantle’s “Beecham House,” backed by ITV, and now Beta Film’s “Bauhaus- A New Era,” a Zero One/Constantin TV/ Nadcon production for Zdf/Arte – Canneseries boasts a half-dozen-or-so banner world premieres from big U.S. and European players, playing in or out of competition.
Beyond the occasional title, such as Belgium’s “The Twelve” which Federation Entertainment brought onto the market at Mipcom, the Canneseries competition looks to have a strong line in comedy, and also be, as artist director Albin Lewi put it – presenting 2019’s Canneseries...
Added to the announced Canal Plus-Studiocanal “Vernon Subutex,” Fremantle’s “Beecham House,” backed by ITV, and now Beta Film’s “Bauhaus- A New Era,” a Zero One/Constantin TV/ Nadcon production for Zdf/Arte – Canneseries boasts a half-dozen-or-so banner world premieres from big U.S. and European players, playing in or out of competition.
Beyond the occasional title, such as Belgium’s “The Twelve” which Federation Entertainment brought onto the market at Mipcom, the Canneseries competition looks to have a strong line in comedy, and also be, as artist director Albin Lewi put it – presenting 2019’s Canneseries...
- 3/13/2019
- by John Hopewell and Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
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