Factual and fiction in focus for Beyond

Beyond Distribution head of sales Munia Kanna-Konsek talks through the company’s C21 Digital Screening Playlist, which has been tailored to broadcasters impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. Inigo Alexander reports.

 

While London-, Dublin- and Sydney-based distributor Beyond Distribution specialises in high-profile returnable series with global appeal, the company turned its sights towards factual content when compiling its current slate.

 

“Our slate this time around reflects our strength in the factual arena,” says head of sales Munia Kanna-Konsek. “This is a range of programmes we’re launching, from male-skewed, character-driven factual entertainment titles through to emotionally driven nature series.”

 

The company’s C21 Digital Screenings playlist is made up of a combination of new titles and returning series and had been due to be unveiled at MipTV, before the coronavirus pandemic upended our industry’s usual methods of doing business and confined us all to make-shift home offices and Zoom conference calls.

 

Leading the Beyond slate this year is four-part engineering-focused title Mega Metro (4×60’), produced by Beyond and Australian prodco Rogue Creatives for Aussie pubcaster SBS.

 

“This is a series that traces the enormous engineering challenges that are faced by the greatest public transport infrastructure project in Australian history. It follows the planning and execution of the largest railway tunnels ever built in Australia. The colossal task of building a brand new, state-of-the-art metro system through, beneath and above the streets of this iconic city of five million people highlights the international team tasked with making this happen.”

 

Filmed over five years, Mega Metro details the efforts by 40,000-plus workers to build 31 new metro stations and 66 kilometres of track through Sydney, including beneath the busy Central Station and iconic Sydney Harbour.

 

Kanna-Konsek says engineering titles have consistently performed well for the company and is confident Mega Metro follows suit: “Engineering has always done very well for us; they’ve always sold and there’s always been a real attraction by the buyers and the viewers themselves.”

 

Beyond’s slate also features a pair of shows set in the Canadian Arctic, namely High Arctic Haulers (7×60’) and Ice Vikings (8×60’). Kanna-Konsek says both are “character-driven, returnable series” and “a real attraction,” adding that these kinds of programmes “work consistently well” for both the distributor and viewers.

 

High Arctic Haulers follows the “extremely dangerous and very tense” annual journey of ships delivering critical provisions and supplies to some of the most remote settlements on earth in an operation known as a ‘sealift.’

 

The show is more layered than it may seem at first glance, says Kanna-Konsek, portraying life on the edge for those dependent on the incoming cargo. “This sealift brings life to these settlements, but the logistics of it are out of this world. This is drama – these big icebergs can actually rip open the hull of these cargo ships,” the exec adds.

 

High Arctic Haulers was originally commissioned by Canadian pubcaster the CBC and produced by Vancouver-based prodco Great Pacific Media.

 

Ice Vikings, meanwhile, sheds light on the dangerous profession of ice fishing. The docuseries looks at the roughly 700 people who form part of Lake Winnipeg’s commercial ice fishing industry, facing blizzards, cracking ice and other dangers every day. Working from home suddenly doesn’t sound so bad.

 

“These are men and women who are in an industry that’s worth just under US$30m a year, so there’s a lot riding on this,” says Kanna-Konsek. “They use traditional fishing methods from their Icelandic ancestors, and they’ve got to race against time and weather.

 

“It’s very character-driven and very generational. It’s grandfather, to father, to son, who help out while the mothers are there in the office taking orders. It’s trying to get the fish over to the market area before anything happens. It’s trying to save people from going down into the ice. It’s a very precarious way of making a living.”

 

Ice Vikings was commissioned by European satcaster Viasat and produced by Farpoint Films, marking the first collaboration between the Winnipeg-based prodco and Beyond. Kanna-Konsek likens the two new series to Canadian docuseries Highway Thru Hell and Heavy Rescue, which Beyond has previously successfully sold to the likes of Netflix, Discovery, Foxtel and TVNZ.

 

Beyond is also distributing Queen of the Oil Patch, an 8×30’ Canadian factual series following businessman Massey Whiteknife and his female alter ego Iceis Rain as they manoeuvre through the local oil industry in Alberta. Another Great Pacific Media production, the show was originally made for Canada’s APTN.

 

Meanwhile, new six-part natural disaster docuseries Nature’s Fury is another key title on Beyond’s slate. The show explores the most devastating natural disasters to have hit Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia over the past decade. Featuring stories of survival and never-before-seen footage, the series highlights the recent bushfires, the worst in Australia’s history, as well as killer droughts, volcanic eruptions, epic flooding, devastating tornadoes and monster storms.

 

“It’s not just about wild storms – these have been devastating natural disasters with really great human-interest stories interlocked with them,” Kanna-Konsek says. “You don’t really realise what’s going on; you get all the news but, until you see these kinds of programmes, you don’t see the altruism that goes on. It’s just brilliant, and it’s exceptionally well produced.”

 

Revealing that Beyond is “keen for it to be a returnable franchise,” Kanna-Konsek hopes the format can be adapted in markets such as the US, China and South America.

 

Elsewhere, despite the distributor’s focus on factual content, Beyond has not forgotten its drama roots. The distributor is also offering buyers historical drama featurette Gemmeker (1×33’), which Kanna-Konsek says is “a new kind of show” for the company.

 

“It’s a film that features a short dramatic re-enactment based on the transcript of the interrogation of German SS officer Albert Gemmeker, a former commander of Camp Westerbork. He is being questioned while awaiting trial, and the person who is questioning him is actually one of the survivors of the camp,” she explains.

 

The film features restored, unseen footage of the Nazi concentration camp in the north east of the Netherlands and is produced by The Media Brothers for RTL Netherlands and its OTT service Videoland.

 

Additionally, this year’s Beyond slate features the return of fictional Australian detective Jane Halifax in the shape of eight-part drama series Halifax Retribution.

 

The show follows on from the Halifax FP TV movies that aired on Australia’s Nine Network throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s sees the detective on the hunt for a sniper. Kanna-Konsek says the show has been adapted to ensure it rings true for modern audiences.

 

“What is most relevant for today’s society is that the sniper is driven by all the mass data information that is stolen from everyone and how easily that is done, whether it be through your banking information or through Facebook etc,” the exec notes. “It’s bringing Jane Halifax back in a very contemporary environment.”

 

Halifax Retribution was again commissioned by Nine, with plans for it to also be available on its sister streaming service, Stan.

 

Also featuring on the Beyond slate is a slew of returning series, including The Invisibles, season five of Chasing Monsters, Rescue USA, Storm of Suspicion and White Rabbit Project.

 

Kanna-Konsek believes the titles on Beyond’s slate are predominantly tailored to traditional broadcasters but adds that they could also find success on streaming platforms.

 

“These are more for traditional broadcasters than streamers but the titles we’ve got here are more for traditional broadcasters, both in free and pay TV,” explains the exec. “A lot of the broadcasters also have their own VoD channels, so they’ll sit on their VoD channels as well as the linear feeds.”

 

The Australian exec also thinks Beyond’s offering could fill the schedule gaps, particularly in summer, created by the pandemic-enforced cancellation of sporting events and suspension of production worldwide.

 

“When you’ve got disruption in your business like that, you want to be able to be there and say, ‘I have got something that will fill in that gap while you’re waiting on your production to be delivered. You may not have considered this before, but it’s worked on Channel X, Y, Z,’ so they may consider that as well.

 

“We’re pulling out all stops and having people consider everything as much as possible, and broadcasters are doing the same thing. They’re very open to a lot of things at the moment that they may not necessarily have been open to before because they had all their schedules in place, they’d spent all their budgets and so forth. So it does change things when suddenly you’ve got to tackle something that was very unforeseen.”

 

In the face of such precarious times and uncertain schedules, Kanna-Konsek says Beyond plans on working in a collaborative manner to ensure the industry can weather the Covid-19 storm.

 

“We’re reasonable. We all need to be kind, considerate and sensitive in our commercial terms,” she adds. “That’s how everyone has to be at this very crucial time, because it will have a devastating economic impact on all our businesses. We’ve got to just ride the tide and try to find ways of bringing our business back to a buoyant level by working with each other.”