“I feel completely privileged” he says, “I do something I love and my job is to talk about my passion, and to galvanise as many people around me as possible.”
Walter Iuzzolino is the man behind Walter Presents, the digital, foreign language drama platform that has been a runaway success for Channel 4.
Titled Deutschland86, the second series picks up the story of Communist agent Martin Rauch who we last saw in East Germany, caught up in a betrayal plot amongst his superior officers.
Three years later, in 1986, Martin emerges as an exile in East Africa and is once again enlisted by his Aunt Lenora to fight in the Global Cold War. Set amongst true stories of terrorism in 1980s Western Europe, Deutschland86 journeys through events in Paris, Johannesburg, and Tripoli before returning to a divided Berlin where nationwide anxieties are coming to a head.
Subtitles, sass and sex are the latest must-haves for broadcasters who are serious about satisfying their audiences. British viewers’ expanding appetite for foreign-language shows has taken in the mafia in Gomorrah on Sky Atlantic, the chilly Icelandic landscape of Trapped on BBC Four and the visceral drugs drama Prófugos on Channel 4’s new online service, Walter Presents.
Available on All 4
Channel 4 will launch a new on-demand service showcasing the best of foreign-language drama in January.
Walter Presents will be available for free on the channel’s digital hub All 4.
Former creative director at Betty, Walter Iuzzolino, will hand pick the content, drawn from around the world.
The first slate of dramas on the service, which launches on 3 January, includes Belgian drama-comedy Clan, German/US co-production Deutschland 83 and Argentinian psychological thriller Pure Evil.
