Balkan drama makers try to turn local stories into global hits

Two vibrant Balkan series took the spotlight this week at the Sarajevo Film Festival, where local creatives dished out their recipe for turning regional stories into potential breakout hits.

Sunday evening saw the regional red carpet premiere of ‘Operation Saber’, a Serbian crime drama that premiered at this year’s Canneseries Long Form Competition. The show, about the 2003 assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić, was created and directed by Goran Stanković and Vladimir Tagić.

Snezana van Houwelingen, who produced the series for Belgrade-based This and That Productions, in co-production with Martichka Bozhilova (Agitprop) for Radio Television of Serbia, said that from the moment they started developing the script, the creators were working on a worldwide audience thought. .

“From the very beginning, we believed that this story had international potential, even though it was a very local event and set in Serbia,” she said. “Everything we did during the development process was about making a TV show [that would] communicate with an international audience.”

Anna Rohde, international creative director at Beta Film Group – whose distribution arm, Beta Film, represents the series worldwide – said her company started circling the project as early as 2019, when it won an award at CineLink Drama’s pitching sessions in Sarajevo.

“From that moment on it was very clear that it was very international,” Rohde said. The Munich-based production and distribution giant – whose regional slate includes “I Know Your Soul,” a crime drama from Oscar-nominated filmmaker Jasmila Žbanić (“Quo Vadis, Aida?”), which was this week’s big winner of Heart of Sarajevo TV Awards – quickly wondered how it could use its considerable international strength to create a breakthrough in the Balkans.

“We discussed what we could add as a co-production partner,” said Rohde. “What could we contribute to bringing it together to an international audience? It was more a matter of working together.”

Eckert Emmanuel, deputy director of acquisitions at Mediawan Rights, said there has been a shift in the way the French distribution giant approaches TV series. “We really want to help the producer finance the show. That is what we are doing more and more,” he says. “It’s very different from 10 years ago, when we were just receiving shows” ready to be sold. “We are more partners than just distributors.”

Earlier this year, the company announced its first foray into the Balkans at Series Mania, acquiring international distribution rights to “Constantine’s Crossing,” a supernatural World War II story about the Nazis’ hunt for powerful relics that once belonged to the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great. Great.

Emmanuel described it as “a Serbian show with vampires, werewolves, Nazis and a mystical cross” and admitted that the series was “not the easiest pitch.” “What really attracted me is not only the quality of the production team, but also the script. And it is always the game changer,” he said.

“Constantine’s Crossing” is an adaptation of Dejan Stojiljkovic’s Serbian bestseller and produced by Telekom Serbia and Belgrade-based Firefly Productions. The series is written by Djordje Milosavljevic and Firefly co-founder Boban Jevtic.

Jevtić, former head of the Serbian Film Center and a veteran film and TV writer, said the mystical elements of the show were exactly what the creators wanted to play up when positioning it for the international market.

“When people think about what kind of project we want to do on a very large scale, we wanted to do something that communicates to the world through genres, with a very strong local flavor,” he said.

Such genre conventions have become a staple of international TV production, especially as emerging industries seek to establish a formula that will create a defining, globally recognizable identity – the equivalent of Nordic Noir for each region.

However, Beta’s Rohde cautioned aspiring TV makers in Sarajevo against adopting a one-size-fits-all strategy in search of the mysterious alchemy behind creating a global hit.

“Here’s the bad news: There is no prescription,” she said. “And here’s the good news: there’s so much creative energy [in a region] that’s full of stories, and it’s a lot of fun to watch them all. We are open to everything.”

Emmanuel, meanwhile, noted that the countries of the former Yugoslavia – long synonymous with unrest and strife – would benefit from uniting behind their shared history and cultural identity.

“I think what is very important when you talk about the Balkans is that we are not talking about one country,” he said. “Of course we work together with Serbia, Croatia and other countries. But I think we are stronger when we are united.”

The Sarajevo Film Festival takes place from August 16 to 23.