Second season for Half the Sky

MIPDOC: FremantleMedia International is here in Cannes offering a second season of documentary series Half The Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.

The distributor has confirmed a second season of the programme is in the pipeline at Show of Force Productions, with four new episodes launching on US public broadcaster PBS in Q4 next year, syndicated in the US by ITVS. The theme for the new episodes with be the plight of women in the Americas.

The production team behind the first series – Maro Chermayeff, Jamie Gordon, Jeff Dupre, Mira Chang and Joshua Bennett – will reunite for the second, and Chermayeff is speaking here tomorrow about how the project was funded.

“With outstanding journalists Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, and six new actress advocates leading the way, what we find in our new series is a clear road map to helping people and the power of every individual to make a difference,” said Chermayeff.

Meanwhile, FremantleMedia has confirmed that broadcasters in 138 territories have acquired the first four-part season. The show has sold to Foxtel in Australia, M-Net for Africa and South Africa; Sixx in Germany and Austria; and Discovery Networks for Latin America, among others.

Half The Sky is based on the book of the same name by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and Pulitzer winner Sheryl WuDunn. The series sends actresses around the globe to document female oppression in places including Cambodia, Kenya, India, Sierra Leone, Somaliland, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Liberia and the US.