International Insider: London’s New-Look TV Week; Charlotte Moore Shocker; Ukraine & Gaza In Spotlight

It’s that time of the week, Insiders. Jesse Whittock here to take you through the headlines from international film and TV.

London’s Big TV Week

A permanent alteration?: Since the London TV Screenings began in 2021, more and more international buyers have been flooding to the English capital in February. Anticipation — and tension — was high this week, as MIP London landed in town for the first time at the Savoy Hotel and IET London conference center. This brought a new market to the table, running parallel to the BBC Studios Showcase and London TV Screenings, which were founded by ITV Studios, All3Media, Fremantle and Banijay and now boast nearly 40 distributors touting wares. A week of wet and windy weather wasn’t enough to put off buyers, who flocked to various events and meetings, while MIP London offered a sprinkling of star power through David Beckham, who talked about his underwear. More seriously, various discussions, both publicly and privately, were focused on continuing global market contraction. Big distribution deals got done, with buzzy Euro crime drama Safe Harbor landing homes on ITV in the UK, Virgin Media Television in Ireland and SBS in Australia, while, intriguingly, and possibly a sign of things to come, ITV Studios and BBC Studios both struck content agreements with Chinese counterparts. ITVS also snapped up Vice Studios’ catalog after a lengthy courtship and Norwegian format The Box continued to unwrap deals. More conference and deal news is here. Overall, there was a surprise feeling of collaboration between the events, with MIP boss Lucy Smith offering olive branches as she pressed the flesh at various London TV Screenings drinks and networking events. Perhaps no-one embodied that spirit better than Be-Entertainment, however, as the Belgium-based distributor put on a ‘Be-EnterTaxi’ service to shuttle buyers to their next meetings through a traffic-heavy central London. Now that’s innovation. There are still murmurs about MIP London’s place in proceedings, but it could be that the international TV schedule is permanently altering again.

BBC Shocker

No Moore: As we reported earlier this year, the top tier of UK broadcasting has experienced an unprecedented period of stability in the past decade. No-one epitomizes that more than BBC Chief Content Officer Charlotte Moore, who has led programming at the UK’s public broadcaster for nearly 10 years. Cue industry-wide shock when it was announced yesterday that Moore had decided to leave and join The Crown maker Left Bank Pictures as CEO and the producer’s parent, Sony Pictures Television, as Creative Director of International Production. Andy Harries, the storied Left Bank founder, had announced his move to Exec Chair a day prior, paving the way for Moore’s grand unveiling. There have been signs this was coming, with Jake and Max late last year revealing Moore had been courted to replace Liam Keelan as Disney’s EMEA content chief (she turned this one down), but it’s hard to overstate how big a deal this is for British producers, with a changing of the guard coming for the first time since 2016. Who replaces her? Well, BBC unscripted chief Kate Phillips will in the interim. Beyond that, there’s no clear frontrunner quite yet, but this runners and riders overview is a good place to starting tracking the field. Stay tuned.

Ukraine Three Years On

Superheroes and capes: This week marked the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine. Amid a surreal and shocking set of political developments around Ukraine’s future, I went deep to assess how the country’s TV industry was holding up. I spoke to several producers and channel execs, including the studio head who had scrambled to save the latest season of MasterChef Ukraine after her facility was hit by a Russian missile less than 10 days before production was due to begin. Viktoriia Vyshniakova’s story was frightening and inspiring, which is actually a good lens through which to look at the TV biz in the country more broadly. “In today’s reality, a Ukrainian producer is nothing short of a superhero,” Kateryna Udut from new Kyiv-based boutique consultancy Between Media later told me. With Donald Trump and his administration continuing to meet with Russian officials, the chances of an end to the invasion are rising — but at what cost for Ukraine and its people? Read more here.

Gaza Doc Controversy

Unprecedented situation: Besides Charlotte Moore, the other big news out of the BBC this week came in the form of yet another editorial controversy. In a week in which the British broadcaster apologized for “missed opportunities” to address the alleged behavior of former radio DJ Tim Westwood, a furore has exploded over the Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone doc when it emerged producer HOYO Films was aware of the narrator’s links to Hamas and did not inform the BBC. After complaints from numerous industry figures, the doc has been hooked from the BBC iPlayer and the corporation faces a dilemma on whether to proceed with an L.A. wildfires doc made by HOYO director Jamie Roberts, as Max revealed on Wednesday. An unprecedentedly in-depth statement released by the BBC last night confirmed the producers had known about the child’s Hamas links. While the BBC board believes this fact was intentionally hidden, “it was then the BBC’s own failing that we did not uncover that fact and the documentary was aired.” Given Jake’s analysis that BBC errors around the Gaza conflict skew heavily against Israeli interests, this is clearly something that needs addressing more fully, and it will via an in-depth review that has now been commissioned. As we go to press, BBC Chair Samir Shah is preparing to meet a riled-up Culture Secretary.

Technicolor Collapses

A WARNing to the industry: It’s been a brutal week for the post-production sector with the confirmation that Technicolor collapsed on both sides of the Pond following financial troubles. The Paris-based VFX and post giant — known for work on hundreds of movies and TV shows, including the Harry Potter films and Mufasa: The Lion King — informed staff in the U.S. of closures through a WARN notice last Friday before similar notes went to workers in the UK and France over the weekend. Before long, hundreds of staff were made redundant, with one source close to the company telling me this week the number of people suddenly on the job market was “devastating.” There was a tiny bright spot, as Jill Goldsmith wrote Monday, when management and staff at Technicolor subsidiary The Mill joined forces with Dream Machine FX to launch a new venture, Arc Creative, keeping dozens of people employed. However, the bad news kept coming, and spread to the animation sector, where Montreal’s ON Animation, the Mediawan-owned facility behind Miraculous and The Little Princewas shuttered with the toon business in a state of flux.

The Essentials

🌶️ Hot One: A24 boarded its first Channel 4 project, flatshare comedy series It Gets Worse from Leo Reich (pictured) that’s also financed by Canada’s Crave.

🌶️ More Heat: Off The Fence teamed with investigative journalists Gloria Gomez and Robin Carter for true-crime programs, with Love & Death Row: The Rosalie Bolin Story being their first project together.

🔥 Very Hot: Berlinale title Köln 75 shopped to the likes of Lucky Red, SF Studios and HBO.

🌍 Global Breakout: Our latest featured Breakout is Drugged and Abused: No More Shamea France 2 doc following Caroline Darian, daughter of Gisèle Pelicot, whose husband was jailed for systemically and covertly raping her over many years.

💸 Sold: Telia’s TV and media assets, including Sweden’s TV4 and Finland’s MTV, to Schibsted Media for around $620M.

⛺ Fest in focus: Diana explored the Glasgow Film Festival through an interview with director Allison Gardner and a rundown of key films and events.

👀 First-look deal: For Phoebe Waller-Bridge‘s Wells Street Films, which struck an agreement with Francesca Moody Productions, the prodco behind the stage versions of Baby Reindeer and Fleabag.

🍿 Box Office: Chinese animation Ne zha 2, Captain America: Brave New World, Bridget Jones 4: Mad About the Boy and Mufasa: The Lion King all featured in Nancy’s latest analysis.

🕯️ RIP: To acting giant Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, who were found dead at home in Santa Fe, and to Israeli filmmaker Renen Schorr, founder of the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School.

This week’s International Insider was written by Jesse Whittock and edited by Max Goldbart.