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Munich, 18 March 2009. Beta Film is bringing nine series and more than 200 hours of new program content in total to this year's MIP TV market in Cannes. The portfolio contains the new seasons of the successful Canadian productions The Border and Heartland, as well as the series Romanzo Criminale, based on an Italian cult novel about a gang of Roman criminals. Beta Film is also offering the TV rights to international feature-film productions such as the Cannes Jury Award-winner Il Divo. One of the highlights of this year's market is the TV movie about the life of Romy Schneider, Romy, starring Jessica Schwarz ("Perfume") in the lead role. Also being introduced to international buyers is the catalogue of the subsidiary firm AUTENTIC, which produces and distributes high-quality documentaries for television and new media. MIP TV begins in Cannes on the French Riviera on 30 March.
November Conspiracy (6 x one hour), produced for the Canadian broadcaster CTV, begins on the day of John F. Kennedy's assassination on 22 November 1963. Shortly after the fatal shots, an airplane takes off from Dallas for Detroit, with only one passenger in first class. All of the flight's crew members suddenly disappear, and the authorities seem to have little interest in clearing up the mystery. At the center of the ARD series The Rheinbergs (21 x one hour) is a wealthy, respectable and mighty family dynasty, the Rheinbergs. When the matriarch's daughter starts asking too many questions, the carefully cultivated façade begins to crumble... Entering their second and third seasons are The Border (39 x one hour) about a customs unit in Toronto, and Heartland (51 x one hour), about a family and its horses in the New West.
The Phoebus Film / Beta Film coproduction Romy (2 hours) directed by Torsten C. Fischer ("Impossibly Yours") relates the life of the world-famous actress whose name was inseparably connected to her role as the Empress Sissi, who then fled from this image to France, fell in love with Alain Delon (played by French shooting star Guillaume Delorme) and experienced many personal tragedies. Featuring a prominent cast toplined by Jessica Schwarz and Thomas Kretschmann ("Valkyrie"), Romy is written by Benedikt Röskau ("Side Effects"). Fireball (2 hours, Sci Fi Channel USA), starring Lexa Doig ("Stargate," "Andromeda") and Ian Somerhalder ("Lost," "CSI"), is an action film about an ex-football player who develops paranormal abilities in prison and destroys everything in his path in his quest for revenge.
In the documentary First on Everest (one hour), AUTENTIC examines the question as to who really first reached the top of the highest mountain in the world. Graf Zeppelin (one hour) examines the fate of Nazi-Germany's first and only aircraft carrier, and the award-winning series Danube Monasteries (20 x 1 hour) looks behind the walls of famous European monasteries. AUTENTIC is a joint venture of Beta Film and Patrick Hörl.
Beta Film will present its current MIP TV program in Cannes at the Hotel Majestic, Salon Croisette, at 12:30 pm on Tuesday 31 March.
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