The first images of Sopravvissuti (Survivors) have been unveiled. This series of twelve 50-minute episodes is one of the projects to come out of Alliance, a partnership between three European public television companies RAI (Italy), France Télévisions and ZDF (Germany).
By creating Alliance, these three European public channels hope “to offer viewers more ambitious, high-quality drama.” As a france.tv, article explains, “the arrival in the drama market of new international players, in particular SVOD, is changing the European broadcasting landscape […]”. So Alliance hopes to revitalize public television production by making it possible to finance larger-scale projects.
Conceived by young Italian writers and directed by Carmine Elia, Survivors is about a yacht and its 12 passengers. During a violent storm, the yacht disappears. A year later, the remains of the boat are found in Venezuela with only 7 people on board. The plot then focuses on trying to understand these strange disappearances.
The casting illustrates how the three broadcasters are working together, with French, Italian and German actors, including Stéfi Celma, Barbora Bobulova and Sophie Pfennigstorf. According to Nathalie Biancolli, vice-president of international drama at France Télévisions, “Sopravvissuti brings together critical aspects of our missions: bringing forward young scriptwriters and highlighting our talents on the international market.” Simone Emmelius, ZDF’s vice-president of international drama, co-productions and purchases, agrees, seeing this diversity as “an added value”.
The series is aimed particularly at viewers on VoD platforms such as ZDFneo and Mediathek, says Simone Emmelius, while public channel viewers will be able to watch it as from next season on RAI 1 and the other partners.
