Sphere Abacus To Sell ‘Safehaven’
Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) has struck a major agreement for ITN Productions’ fast turnaround doc The Pelicot Rape Case: A Town on Trial. In a competitive situation, WBD landed rights to the 90-minute film, which was for the 5 network in the UK, for 90 countries across Europe and Africa in a deal with distributor Orange Smarty. The doc includes an on-camera interview with one of the alleged rapists of Gisele Pelicot, the French woman whose husband, Dominique Pelicot, was jailed for multiple counts of drugging and raping her over a nine-year period. Numerous men from Avignon, where the Pelicots lived, were convicted of sex crimes committed while Gisele Pelicot was drugged and unconscious. The doc was part of Orange Smarty’s London TV Screenings slate last month, along with South Shore Productions’ two-part documentary Eat Smart: Secrets of the Glucose Goddess, which has sold to SBS in Australia, RTL in the Netherlands, TV2 in Denmark and TV2 in Norway. Elsewhere, long-running property search format A Place in the Sun will make its debut in Canada after Corus Entertainment acquired 120 hours of the Channel 4 show, along with BBC Two series Andi Oliver’s Fabulous Feasts for its Flavour Network.
French documentary market Sunny Side of the Doc has named its first advisory board since Aurélie Reman’s appointment as Managing Director last year. It comprises Caroline Behar, Head of International Coproductions and Acquisitions at France Télévisions; Laurent Duret, founder of French prodco Bachibouzouk; Paul Heaney, CEO of UK-based distributor Bossanova; consultant Elvira Lind; Wangeci Mūrage, CEO of Kenya’s Media Pros Africa; Emmanuel Prosnier, Business Development Manager, Broadcast Department at Getty Images in France; Ellen Windemuth, Chair of the U.S.-based WaterBear Network; and Myriam Weil, Head of Documentaries at Federation Studios. “This advisory board marks a pivotal step in my vision to strengthen Sunny Side of the Doc as Europe’s central hub for audiovisual documentaries, supported by a worldwide network of partners,” said Reman. The 36th Sunny Side will be held June 23-26 in La Rochelle, France.
Long-gestating supernatural thriller series Safehaven is heading overseas. UK-based distributor Sphere Abacus has acquired international sales rights (excluding the U.S.) for the series, which is from James Seale and based on his graphic novel from Michael Bay’s 451 Media Group. The ten-part series, which doesn’t yet have a U.S. home, filmed in Canada, directed by Kaare Andrews and Seale. Billed as a thriller “in the tradition of Black Swan and Jacob’s Ladder,” the show stars Georgie Murphy (Gen V, Small Achievable Goals), Bob Frazer (Supergirl, Motherland) and Gino Anania (Skymed, The Porter). It follows a rebellious teen, Jenna Frost (Murphy), whose love of art is an outlet to channel her darkness and exorcise her internal demons. After a car accident leaves her in a coma, she finds herself trapped in her latest creation, comic book ‘Safehaven’, which is about a dystopian high school world. In the real world, cognitive therapist John Rayburn, who is a mysterious school counselor in Jenna’s subconscious world, works to tap into her unconscious mind to bring her back to the living world. Production on the show was first greenlit in June 2022 at Crackle owner Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, which collapsed last year and went into liquidation.
View this article at Deadline.
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