Balkan drama makers aim to turn local stories into global hits

This week, two popular Balkan series are in the spotlight Sarajevo Film Festivalwhere local creatives shared their recipe for turning regional stories into potential breakout hits.

On Sunday evening, the regional premiere of “Operation Saber“, a Serbian crime drama that premiered in the Canneseries long-form competition this year. The show about the 2003 assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was created and directed by Goran Stankovic and Vladimir Tagic.

Snežana van Houwelingen, producer of the series in Belgrade. This and that productionin collaboration with Martička Božilova (Agitprop) for Radio Television of Serbia, said the creators had a global audience in mind from the moment they began developing the script.

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

Anna Rohde, International Creative Director Beta Movie Group — whose distribution arm Beta Film is representing a series worldwide — said her company began working on the project back in 2019, when it won an award at the CineLink Drama pitching event in Sarajevo.

“From that moment on it became very clear that it was very international,” said Rohde. The Munich-based manufacturing and distribution giant, whose regional roster includesI know your soul“, a crime drama from the Oscar-nominated director Yasmila Zbanic (“Quo Vadis, Aida?”), which was the big winner this week Television Award “Heart of Sarajevo” — soon wondered how he could use his considerable international influence to create a breakthrough Balkan hit.

“I Know Your Soul” won the Heart of Sarajevo TV Awards.
Provided by Deblokada for BH Content Lab

“We discussed what we could add as a co-production partner,” Rohde said. “What could we bring to the table to bring it to an international audience? It was more a question of collaboration.”

Eckert Emmanuel, Deputy Director of Purchasing at Media User Rightssaid there has been a shift in the French distribution company’s approach to TV series. “We really want to help the producer finance the show. That’s what we’re doing more and more,” he said. “It’s very different from 10 years ago, when we were just getting shows” that were finished and ready to sell. “We’re more partners than just distributors.”

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

Describing it as “a Serbian show with vampires, werewolves, Nazis and a mystical cross,” Emmanuel admitted that the series was “not the easiest.” “It wasn’t just the quality of the crew that attracted me, but also the script. And that’s always a game changer,” he said.

“The Ferry of Constantine” is a film adaptation of the Serbian bestseller by Dejan Stoiljkovic, produced by Telekom Serbia, a Belgrade-based company. Firefly ProductionsThe series is written by Djordje Milosavljevic and Firefly co-founder Boban Jevti.h.

Jevtic, a former head of the Serbian Film Centre and a talented film and television screenwriter, said it was the mystical elements of the series that its creators wanted to highlight when they began to position it for the international market.

Constantine's Crossing is a supernatural drama about World War II.
Courtesy of Firefly Productions

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

Such genre conventions have become an integral part of international television production, especially as emerging industries strive to develop a formula that will create a defining, globally recognisable identity – each region's equivalent of Nordic noir.

But Beta's Rohde cautioned aspiring TV programmers in Sarajevo against adopting a one-size-fits-all strategy in their search for the mysterious alchemy that underlies a global hit.

“Here's the bad news: There's no recipe,” she said. “And here's the good news: There's so much creative energy [in a region] It's full of stories, and it's fun to watch each one. We're open to everything.”

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

“I think it's very important that when you talk about the Balkans, we're not talking about one country,” he said. “Of course, we work with Serbia, Croatia, other countries. But I think we're stronger when we're united.”

The Sarajevo Film Festival will take place from August 16 to 23.

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