Yahoo News Berlin: Germany’s Sky Orders Two New Original Series
Leading German pay-TV network Sky Deutschland, part of Comcast-owned European TV giant Sky, is doubling down on its local-language originals slate, giving straight-to-series orders for two new high-end TV series.
Tobias Rosen, vp Sky Studios Deutschland, the channel’s production arm, presented the projects at Up Next, a showcase of new Sky original content during the Berlin Film Festival on Friday.
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Garten Eden, an eight-part series created, written and directed by Boris Kunz, is a restaurant-set drama following Jakob Eden, a celebrity chef with a penchant for light drugs and with bipolar disorder. With his late father’s restaurant, the Garten Eden, on the brink of ruin, Jakob’s brother Simon lures his famous sibling back to the kitchen to guarantee a vital cash injection from an investor.
Initially, Jakob, at the peak of a manic period, is thrilled. He quits his lucrative job at a prestigious catering company and forgets his plans to move with his wife, Miriam, and their daughters to Hamburg. When Miriam leaves without him, Jakob falls into a deep depression, and Simon is shocked to realize what he has let himself in for.
Garten Eden will be produced by Jan Ehlert at Hager Moss Film and co-producer Jakob Pochlatko for Epo Film in association with Sky Studios. Sophie von Uslar, Stella Flicker and Tobias Rosen will executive produce for Sky Studios.
KraNK Berlin is a dark comedy set at Neukölln Hospital, KraNK for short, one of Germany’s toughest and most overcrowded hospitals. After a patient bleeds to death in the understaffed emergency room, the young Munich doctor Zanna is appointed to reform the place, but faces stiff resistance from the KraNK staff, especially the anarchistic emergency doctor, Ben.
Samuel Jefferson is the lead writer for the eight-part series, being produced by Violet Pictures and Real Film Berlin in association with Sky Studios. Fabian Möhrke and Alex Schaad will direct, with Alexis von Wittgenstein and Henning Kamm as executive producers. Florian Handler and Rosen will executive produce for Sky Studios.
“Building on the success of juggernaut Sky original series Das Boot, Der Pass and Babylon Berlin, as well as the forthcoming Drift: Partners in Crime, these two new series symbolize our ambition to expand the range and breadth of our German-originated slate, bringing customers something they’ve never seen before on Sky,” said Rosen. “Both of these new, bold and distinctive series, will be delivered by some of the best talent working today and we can’t wait to begin production soon.”
Next week at the Berlinale Series Market, Sky will present its new four-part documentary series Juan Carlos I, which explores the rise and fall of the former Spanish king.
