Ach. Du. Lieber. Euro TV has arrived in the US, meine Freunden. As in produced by an American company. Namely SundanceTV, who with UFA Fiction, is making Deutschland 83, “the first ever German-language drama to be aired on a major US network.”
A small number of stateside entertainment concerns have been importing and screening non-English-language shows from Europe for a while, including SundanceTV, which brought the hit French supernatural series, The Returned, to the US. None (exclusive of one SVoD service), though, have produced a foreign-language program (and by “foreign,” I don’t mean Dothraki). Until now.
In partnership with FremantleMedia International (FMI), SundanceTV and FMI’s UFA Fiction are co-producing Deutschland 83, a new eight-part German-language drama. The series is set to have its exclusive world premiere during the inaugural Berlinale Special Series at the 65th Berlinale International Film Festival.
Co-created by American author Anna Winger (This Must Be the Place) and her German husband, producer Joerg Winger (SOKO Leipzig), Deutschland 83 is an intense, gripping, heart-pounding coming-of-age thriller set against the real culture wars and political events of Germany in the 1980s.
The drama follows 24-year-old Martin Rauch (Jonas Nay, Tatort) as he is pulled from the world he knows in East Germany to serve as an undercover spy for the Stasi foreign service in the West German army. With everything here being new to him, nothing being what it seems, and everyone he encounters harboring political and personal secrets, Martin hides in plain sight while tasked with gathering the secrets of NATO military strategy.
Said Anna Winger and Joerg Winger, “Deutschland 83 was born of a transatlantic relationship. Conceived at our German-American kitchen table in Berlin, written by an American with an international team, made in Germany with a diverse and remarkably talented cast and crew. We are thrilled to be the first German series on TV in the United States and honored to follow in the footsteps of the other great series on SundanceTV.”
Deutschland 83 is executive produced by UFA Fiction’s Joerg Winger and Nico Hofmann (Donna Leon), and directed by Edward Berger (Bukow and König) and Samira Radsi (Hamburg Dockland). The series is a UFA Fiction production for RTL Television in Germany, co-produced by SundanceTV in the US, and distributed by FremantleMedia International.
__________________
Add your comments on our Facebook and Twitter pages.
Share this post/page.