Banijay sails into The Gulf

MIPCOM: Banijay Rights has teamed up with New Zealand’s Screentime and Germany’s Studio Hamburg Production and ZDF on a new ‘Southern Noir’ coproduction.

Simone Emmelius

Six-part thriller The Gulf is coproduced by Screentime and Kiwi prodco Lippy Pictures, along with Studio Hamburg Production Group-owned Letterbox Filmproduktion and broadcaster ZDF.

Banijay Rights is onboard in exchange for global distribution rights.

Other broadcasters attached to the project already include MediaWorks’ Three in New Zealand and Nine in Australia.

Set in New Zealand, The Gulf follows a detective investigating crimes on her home patch of Waiheke Island, but things unravel personally and professionally when she loses her memory in a car crash that kills her husband.

The series is directed by Charlie Haskell (Straight Forward, Tangiwai), Gaysorn Thavat (Fresh Eggs) and Rob Sarkies (This Is Not My Life, Out of the Blue).

Simone Emmelius, ZDF’s head of feature films and coproduction, said the show broke “new ground” for ZDF and was a further step in expanding its coproduction slate.

“This production promises to have the hallmarks of what makes current television drama so exciting,” added Andrew Szusterman, MediaWorks’s chief content officer. “It will keep global audiences transfixed at every turn, all packaged up by some of New Zealand’s finest production and acting talent and set against her unique landscape.”