21 top picks from MipTV

C21 was on the ground in Cannes last week, scouring the Palais des Festival and pounding La Croisette in search of the latest hot shows emerging from MipTV 2015.

Our latest Hot Properties Playlist gathers together the top 21 titles the team felt generated most buzz at the market and were distinct from those we chose ahead of it.

The playlist is available to view through the C21Screenings portal and the C21Screen app and highlights the fact that drama remains the most fertile genre for attention-grabbing programmes.

Exciting new formats remained in short supply and the digital universe is increasingly emerging as the home of greatest invention. TV’s challenge remains keeping up with what’s happening in this space, not only in entertainment but factual as well.

If you would like to submit a show for consideration in one of our upcoming C21 Hot Properties Playlists, email [email protected].

Title: Fouda
Producer and distributor: Yes TV
Israeli drama about Israeli agents living undercover as Arabs in the West Bank trying to track down a member of Hamas thought to be responsible for killing more than 100 of their  people. A potentially breakthrough series with more than half the dialogue in Arabic, in which ‘fouda’ means chaos.

Title: Follow the Money (10×60′)
Producers: DR, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, SVT, NRK, YLE5, RUV
Distributor: DR Sales
From the broadcaster that brought us The Killing and Borgen comes this new flagship drama set in the aftermath of the global economic crisis, exposing the greed and corruption at its heart. Written by Jeppe Gjervig Gram and directed by Per Fly. Due on air in January 2016.

Title: The Department of Time (Ministerio del Tiempo, 8×70′)
Producer: Onza Entertainment
Distributor: Onza Distribution
Spanish time-travel drama for TVE about a secret government department created over 500 years ago with the sole mission of preventing anyone from altering the past. Combining historical drama, adventure and comedy, the premise offers almost endless scope for invention.

Title: Rabia (Rage, 8×70′)
Producer: Isla Audiovisual
Distributor: 360 Powwow
Mediaset España adventure thriller about a group of outlaws who, after undergoing a clandestine and experimental treatment to save their lives, become infected with an unknown virus that causes threatening behaviour disorders that force them to go into hiding, escape from the authorities and try to find a  cure. Captivate Entertainment – attached to Universal Studios – has recently picked up US remake rights.

Title: The Valley: In the Mist of Silence (Weinberg, 6×60′)
Producers: Bantry Bay Productions, Twenty Four 9 Films, TNT Serie
Distributor: Beta Film
The second original production from Turner’s German paynet TNT Serie begins when a man, who cannot remember his name, wakes up near the corpse of a young woman, hanging in the harvested grapes of a vineyard. After that, we are promised plot twists and unpredictably. Due to air fall 2015.

Title: Under Suspicion (8×60′)
Producer: Bambú Producciones
Distributor: Beta Film
The story of a young girl who goes missing on the day of her first communion in a small village, with the police sure of only one thing: the person who took her was at the party. a new drama from the production team behind the series Grand Hotel, Velvet and The Refugees.

Title: Jordskott (10×60′)
Producers: Palladium Fiction, Kinoproduktion
Distributor: ITV Studios Global Entertainment
Swedish mystery crime drama that’s been on the circuit a while now but, after reworking, debuted on SVT in February. About a detective who returns to her small, rural town 10 years after the disappearance of her daughter to work on the case of a missing boy. Once there, she attempts to establish a connection between the two incidents. Directed and written by Anders Engström and Henrik Björn. Nordic Noir with a supernatural twist and possibly a test of continuing demand for the genre.

Title: The Kettering Incident (8×60′)
Producers: Porchlight Films, Sweet Potato Films
Distributor: BBC Worldwide
They say: Australian drama for Foxtel about a female doctor who returns to the small town she left as a teenager and finds herself inexplicably linked to the disappearances of two girls in the wilds of Tasmania 15 years apart. Spectacular and unique scenery make for a moody, atmospheric thriller.

Title: Partners in Crime (6×60′)
Producers: Endor Productions, Agatha Christie Productions
Distributor: All3Media International
The latest TV adaptation of two of Agatha Christies’ Tommy and Tuppence novels, starring David Walliams (Little Britain) and Jessica Raine (Call the Midwife) as the husband-and-wife detective team tackling espionage in post-Second World War Britain. Due to air on the UK’s BBC1 this autumn to coincide with the 125th anniversary of Christie’s birth.

Title: Cape Town (6×52’/3×90’)
Producers: Dynamic Television, Out of Africa Entertainment, All-in-Production
Distributor: Dynamic Television
They say: Thriller based on the books by South African author Deon Meyer, described by some as the country’s best modern crime writer. Billed as a character-driven drama that hails from Book of Negroes producer Out of Africa Entertainment and available for presale at MipTV, this could mark the beginning of South African Noir.

Title: South of Hell (8×60′)
Producers: Sonar Entertainment and Blumhouse Television
Distributor: Sonar Entertainment
Mena Suvari (American Beauty, American Pie, Chicago Fire) takes on her first first lead TV role, playing a reluctant exorcist for hire in ‘the most possessed city in the world.’ Racy horror airing on WE tv the US later this year, with Eli Roth directing the opener.

Title: Run! (8×60′)
Producer and distributor: Elk Entertainment
Four couples on the run are chased across the nation and presented with a series of daily challenges, while celebrities try to track them down and tag them using cameras. Viewers can follow and interact with contestants online, choosing to either help or hinder them. The Amazing Race brought up to date for the digital age. Airing on TV4 in Sweden this fall.

Title: Live In Front of a Studio Audience (8×60′)
Producer and distributor: Vice Media
Having tested the concept of a live music video filmed in front of an audience with indie rock band Arcade Fire at the YouTube Music Awards in 2013, Vice has partnered with promoter Live Nation to repeat the process with various different musical acts. Due to be unveiled this summer.

Title: My Selfie Life
Producer: Nerd TV
Distributor: Red Arrow International
Having started out as a series of video shorts on the website of UK broadcaster Channel 4, My Selfie Life has now evolved into a 10-episode series for US cablenet Fusion. An interesting experiment to see whether getting young people to film and talk about themselves in the online space can also draw them to TV.

Title: Word Up (8×30’)
Producer: South Pacific Pictures
Distributor: All3Media International
Set to launch on TVOne in New Zealand later this year, this comedy quizshow sees comedians recruit a partner to take part in physical and mental challenges based around a new ‘key word.’ Kiwi drama specialist South Pacific Pictures’ foray into the formats space following success with detective series The Brokenwood Mysteries.

Title: The Labor Games (format)
Producer: Lighthearted Entertainment
Distributor: Electus International
The maternity ward may not seem like the most logical place for a gameshow. Nevertheless, this format, which has already been picked up by TLC in the US, sees a couple in a hospital delivery room joined by a host who gives them the chance to win prizes for their unborn baby. Due to air in May as part of a ‘Mother of All Weeks’ string of event programming.

Title: 1001 Rooms – Beat the Matrix (format)
Producer: Dolinsekfilm
Distributor: All3Media
Gameshow in which contestants must escape from a matrix consisting of 1001 individual rooms. Winner of this year’s MipFormats International Pitch competition, garnering a development deal with All3Media International. In early development, as illustrated by this mock-up video.

Title: Cyanide & Happiness (20×11′)
Producer: ExplosmEntertainment
Distributor: Collective Digital Studios
Having started out as a web comic in 2004 and moving into animated YouTube shorts in 2010, the creators of this black sketch comedy raised money via Kickstarter last year to help fund a longform series that’s been primed by Collective Digital Studios to make the leap to TV, potentially bringing millions of existing fans along and acquiring a host of new ones.

Title: Ängelby (12×60′)
Producers: Tre Vänner/Svensk Filmindustri, SVT, Film i Väst
Distributor: ITV Studios Global Entertainment
Written by Johan Kindblom and Tomas Tivemark, the show stars Swedish actor Mia Skäringer as Vera, a woman who embarks on a new start in the eponymous town. Clip not yet available.

Title: 500 Questions (9×60′)
Producers: United Artists Media Group, Warner Horizon Television
Distributor: Warner Bros Worldwide Television Distribution
Forthcoming primetime ABC gameshow format from former Fox unscripted chief Mike Darnell and super producer Mark Burnett. Contestants compete to answer 500 successive general knowledge questions and are thrown out if they get three wrong in a row. Two TV titans aiming to bring the studio-based quizshow back to its essence. Clip not yet available.

Title: Natural Born Pranksters
Producer and distributor: Collective Digital Studios
YouTube comedians Vitaly Zdorovetskiy, Roman Atwood and Dennis Roady join forces for a hidden-camera stunt series that pushes the boundaries of comedy and taste to new highs or lows, depending on your point of view. Billed as the next Jackass, born from the digital age. Clip not yet available.