CONTENT WARSAW: Estonian prodco Zolba Productions is becoming a catalyst for Central and Eastern European coproductions that challenge the conventional perception of the Baltics. And its founder, Jevgeni Supin, is only just getting started.

Jevgeni Supin

This year is shaping up to be a memorable one for producer Jevgeni Supin, founder of Estonia’s Zolba Productions. Von Fock, the period crime drama that premiered at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival last November and shortly after was picked up for worldwide distribution by ZDF Studios, became a hit locally when it began airing on public broadcaster ERR in early March.

The four-parter is based on the historical crime novels Detective von Fock by author Ain Kütt and directed by Arun Tamm, who made his name directing hit Estonian film Bad Hair Day. It is coproduced by Zolba, Latvia’s Berghein Production and Nafta, and Italy’s MovieMento and Albolina Film.

“The ratings share was great – always in the top 10 weekly shows on linear TV and it was the all-time most-watched show on the local FVoD platform [Jupiter],” says Supin.

The “next big thing,” according to Supin, will be Von Fock’s Italian premiere at a special screening at the 31st Geneva International Film Festival in November. “That’s very exciting,” Supin says about the opportunity to screen the series to an audience outside the Baltics.

The producer, whose credits include coproducing the first Estonian Viaplay original, Who Shot Otto Mueller, makes no bones about his ambition to create an international break-out hit that originates from Estonia, and he feels there’s no better opportunity than now.

“Before, no one cared about producing with a small country that is somewhere in Eastern Europe,” notes Supin. “Now, because of the scarcity of the finance and the more complicated market situation, people and production companies are more open to that.”

Von Fock is based on a series of historical crime novels

Estonia, which has a population of less than 1.5 million, sits in the far north of Eastern Europe and borders the Baltic and the Gulf of Finland. To the east of the country sits Russia and to the south lies Latvia, one of the two other countries collectively known as the Baltic States. The third is Lithuania. Their shared history – not least as republics within the USSR, from which they became independent in 1991 – shapes their stories, culture, politics and attitudes. But their differences are as significant as what they have in common, says Supin.

“In the eyes of the world, the Baltics is one country,” the exec jokes. “[People] do not understand that we are three different countries with three different languages, and even culturally, we are very different one from the other.”

Taking its lead from its Nordic neighbours to the north, where cooperation on high-end drama is the order of the day, the content industry in the Baltics is looking at pioneering ways to work together to overcome the challenges of limited market size and funding. Von Fock is a case in point. The budget for the historical drama approached nearly €4m (US$4.6m), which is “exceptionally high” for the region, where programme budgets are commonly in the low hundreds of thousands, according to Supin.

“It is very hard to produce something of high production quality [in the Baltics],” he says.

Estonian Viaplay original Who Shot Otto Mueller

The main commissioner for Von Fock was Eesti Telefilm, ERR’s drama production unit. ERR partnered with the two other public broadcasters in the region, Latvia’s LTV and Lithuania’s LRT, something that is increasingly common in the region and an arrangement the three pubcasters have talked about formalising into a coproduction alliance, mirroring agreements such as New8 and Nordivision’s N12.

Von Fock also received support from the Estonian Film Institute, Creative Europe Programme, LIAA (Investment and Development Agency of Latvia) and IDM Film Commission. What sets it apart, however, is the fact it became the first series from the region to receive support from both the Creative Media TV and Online Content support programme and the Council of Europe’s €21m three-year (2023-25) Pilot Programme for Series Coproductions. This was achieved by attaching a German scriptwriter to the show (the story is set in the first half of the 19th century when Germany ruled the Baltics), as well as Italian and Latvian coproducers, who were able to apply to their local funds.

“The fact there are several European funds that are encouraging new partnerships and unusual financing models is also adding a bonus for cooperating with us or coproducing with us,” comments Supin.

It’s no wonder, then, that Supin is applying what he has learnt from Von Fock to the rest of his internationally focused dramas slate. Next up is the thriller A Girl From Tallinn, a €1.1m Central and Eastern European coproduction that the exec says is “finishing development and starting light prep.” It too is an ERR commission, but this time with pan-Baltic VoD platform Go3. Latvia’s LTV, meanwhile, has pre-bought the show.

Zolba original dance competition show Dance to  Victory

Despite its name, the story originates from Ukraine and is set in modern-day Kyiv, where a reformed criminal meets a girl who looks exactly like the love of his life, who was murdered in Tallinn during the 1990s. Onboard as coproducer is Ukraine’s Film.UA, alongside Bulgaria’s Agitprop.

The latter’s involvement enabled the TV series to secure funding from the Bulgarian National Film Centre, while the former allowed it to tap into the Council of Europe’s aforementioned series coproduction pilot programme. Modelled on the Eurimages scheme for feature films, the pilot programme provides a top-up grant to assist late-stage financing of series copros between independent producers. A Girl From Tallinn is due to go into production before the end of the year.

Supin, meanwhile, has secured funding for a further three projects that Zolba is developing through the European mini-slate development programme, which is part of the Creative European Media Programme. “We are working hard on three series in development: Let It Snow, Operation Silver Wolf and Breaking The Ice,” the exec says.

Let It Snow is a drug trafficking story based on true events written as “a dramedy in the Guy Ritchie style,” according to Supin, who reveals it is a coproduction with Finland’s Take Two Studios and Croatia’s Drugi Plan.

Survival show One-On-One With Forest

Like A Girl From Tallinn, Let It Snow has Go3 attached as a commissioner, which Supin describes as a close working relationship. “They are really ambitious, and they see the bigger picture and understand the significance of these kinds of productions,” he says.

Operation Silver Wolf, meanwhile, is a high-concept series, also based on a true story but this time about the pursuit of a super weapon during the Second World War. “It is very topical currently as it’s about the eternal fight between good and evil,” comments Supin. The series is a coproduction between Estonia, Finland, Germany and Scotland.

Although Supin is currently putting most of his focus on his international high-end drama slate, he began in the non-scripted space on shows such as the local adaptations of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Dancing With the Stars and Deal or no Deal.

“I started probably as everyone does, as a runner or floor manager, and then I started to edit. I was an editing director and then at some point I understood that I would like to organise, so I was hired as a producer at BEC [the Baltic Entertainment Company],” recalls Supin.

He formed Zolba in 2013 while still working at BEC, becoming fully independent in 2017, after which he produced both non-scripted and scripted content. Some of Zolba’s original productions include the dance competition show Dance to  Victory (2023) for ERR and the survival show One-On-One With Forest (2021/22), also for ERR.

Zolba’s 2021 drama Still Waters

Zolba’s scripted content includes Still Waters (ERR, 2021), Man in Room 301 (Elisa, 2021) and, most recently, My Dear Mother, a psychological drama coproduced with Ukraine’s Film.UA, marking the first international coproduction by Estonian platform Elisa. The series, a Nordic noir story, was selected for the Berlinale Series Market Selects programme at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival.

Because of the Baltic states’ “weird spot on the map,” Supin does not hold out much hope for global streamers such as Netflix, Warner Bros Discovery and Canal+ taking much notice of the region any time soon, but that just makes him more determined than ever to overcome its challenges.

“We need to find people, other producers and partners who think the same as us, and only when we unite can we make our voice audible to others, to bigger countries, to the old Europe, as I call it. Every project now on our slate is considered for coproduction between different regions and countries, otherwise it will not be possible to produce it,” says the exec.

“As one of my German friends said to me, the Baltics has a big wall around it where the pressure is building up inside. Now it’s just a question of time when and with what project we will blow up those old walls.”

And, yes, Supin even dares to dream of creating a whole new TV drama genre that can be as impactful as Nordic noir: “I do hope we can even establish a new genre – let’s call it the Baltic New Wave.”