You may not expect a piece in Television to begin with East Asian geopolitics, but trust me. Diplomatic relations between Japan and South Korea, two pro-American democracies in the region, were strained for a long time due to past wars and economic exploitation. Those tensions were reflected in Pachinko (Apple TV+, 2022), a saga about four generations of unhappy Korean emigrants to Japan.
Walter Presents’ latest Scandi noir puts women, specifically mothers, at the centre of its dark and disturbing drama. In Snow Angels (Snöänglar), the lives of three women –
a mother, policewoman and a paediatric nurse – become intertwined following the disappearance of a five-week-old boy, Lucas, shortly before Christmas in a snow-covered suburb of Stockholm.
Iuzzolino, who introduced an RTS London event in October, said: “It is one of the very few shows I’ve bought off-script.” In Witch Hunt, an accountant (Ida Waage, played by Westworld actor Ingrid Bolsø Berdal) blows the whistle on corruption, but finds herself subjected to harassment and false accusations.
Series creators and writers Anna Bache-Wiig and Siv Rajendram Eliassen were inspired by the true story of a whistleblower in Norway.
Through the comedy-drama chic of Call My Agent! (Dix Pour Cent), the down and dirty cop-show grit of Spiral (Engrenages), the adventures of gentleman thief Assane Diop in Lupin or the political thrills and spills of The Bureau, international viewers are devouring subtitled French sass with gusto.
Eagle Eye Drama will produce English language dramas based on hit foreign language programmes that have been distributed on Walter Presents channels across the world.
Channel 4 will be a stakeholder in the new company and will invest through the Indie Growth Fund, which is aimed to support independent enterprises in the UK’s creative sector.
With several dramas already in development, Eagle Eye Drama has won two commissions from two broadcasters that will be announced in early 2020.
Created by Jeanne Le Guillou and Bruno Dega, the series revisits detective Lise (Julie De Bona), whose happy family life is interrupted when two women are discovered dead within two days.
After solving the disappearance of teenage girls by Lac de Sainte-Croix three years previously, Lise has moved 200 miles away to Lac d’Annecy with her husband and son. The family's rural idyll is shattered as Lise is placed as lead detective on the new murder case.
A stolen car sits, boot open, guarded by one man. A short distance away, two other masked men are carrying out the biggest robbery in the history of Sweden.
They tackle two female guards and crack open the safe of an armoured transport car, stealing away with around 730 million SEK, although much of it in unusable government bonds.
Three days later the men board a plane in Copenhagen having purchased round-the-world tickets costing over 55 000 SEK for the three.
One of those men, the man who stood guard while the robbery took place, is Dragomir Mrsic.
Succeeding in the creative industries takes as much luck as it does talent and dogged determination. But ultimately someone does make it. Why couldn’t that be you?
That is the central question of Young and Promising from All 4’s Walter Presents.
The 10-part series, set in Copenhagen, Stockholm and Frankfurt stars Borgen’s Birgitte Hjort Sørensen as a drone engineer taken hostage by terrorists in her own home. She manages to get a message to the secret services, who desperately try to prevent an attack on Scandinavian soil.
This week's top television includes the finale of comedy series The Detectorists, a documentary exploring a year in the life of deaf teenagers, a new French crime drama from Walter Presents, and a special two-part series of Taskmaster: Champion of Champions.
