Iskas pushes Greek drama as Antenna Studios brings first original to Cannes

MIPCOM: Industry veteran Michael Iskas, former global president of The Story Lab, says Greece is becoming a new hotbed for original drama production, as his latest venture Antenna Studios debuts its first titles in Cannes.

Michael Iskas

Iskas left Dentsu-owned The Story Lab a year-and-a-half ago to lead an original content push in the new Greece-based studios division of European production group Antenna, which operates local commercial network ANT1.

The first scripted projects are starting to emerge from Antenna Studios now, with dark thriller Save Me being pitched to buyers here in Cannes this week.

Due for launch on ANT1+ later this year, the crime drama is based on the best-selling book by Dimitris Simos and directed by Pierros Andrakakos.

Now CEO of Antenna Studios, Iskas believes it is part of a new wave of premium Greek drama that has the potential to put the country on the TV distribution map in the same way Scandi noir did for the colder parts of Europe over the past decade.

“There is a lot going on in Greece right now,” Iskas told C21. “The production subsidies in place over the last two years, 40% for fiction, have transformed the industry. The quality of production has increased and international productions are now taking place in Greece for some of the biggest streamers in the world and production companies from the UK and US. The skillset is improving and the quality of writing is really good – we run a script academy as part of Antenna Studios and have been nicely surprised with the talent that has come through the ranks.”

Save Me (8×45’) is centred on the work of a female detective trying to solve a triple homicide in her hometown, relying on being able to work with a girl she bullied when at school.

The plot is set in the rural north-east of Greece, rather than the islands and beach resorts the country is often associated with, which attracted Iskas to the project, with an eye on the international market.

“It has a Christian orthodox, Muslim and Jewish population living together for many years. It’s a society that has never been shown anywhere,” he said. “The moment we read the book and realised it was in that region we really felt it could resonate with an international audience.”

Antenna has been setting its sights on international expansion for some time. Last year it acquired a portfolio of 22 pay TV channels and two OTT services across a dozen CEE territories from Sony Pictures Television, and earlier this year Middle Eastern company MBC Group invested US$248.8m in the group for a 30% stake – something Iskas described as a “huge vote of confidence.”

Asked what lessons he brought from his previous roles to Antenna Studios, Iskas said: “The importance of finding the local stories that are very powerful and can resonate with international audiences. We did this at The Story Lab with XRey , which we created as a podcast in Spain and it was then commissioned as a premium English-language drama series. There are stories everywhere – we need to understand the psyche of the local market, but also what international audiences will connect with.”