See-Saw hires, goes back to Lake

MIPCOM: See-Saw, the UK prodco behind feature film The King’s Speech, has hired two senior execs to continue its push into television as its drama series Top of the Lake is greenlit for a second run.

Top of the Lake will return to BBC2 in the UK with original writers Jane Campion and Gerard Lee onboard again.

The first season marked Campion’s first return to television since An Angel at My Table in 1990 and was filmed in New Zealand and aired on UKTV in Australia. It was subsequently nominated for eight Emmy’s, two Golden Globes and a Bafta after airing on Sundance Channel in the US.

To further its commitment to television, See-Saw has hired TV and film industry lawyer Hakan Kousetta as chief operating officer to spearhead the commercial and operational side of the business. He started his media career at London-based Howard Kennedy and set up boutique legal firm Aslan Charles Kousetta in 2008.

Patrick Walters has also joined the company as development executive. He was most recently at Ruby Film & Television where he helped progress scripts and projects at all stages, including recently wrapped features Suffragette and Tulip Fever. Prior to this Walters worked at Scott Free Films, Channel 4 Drama and Warner Bros International.

See-Saw is also in post-production on Banished, written and devised by Jimmy McGovern and coproduced with RSJ Films for BBC Drama.

The seven-part series was inspired by events in the 18th century when Britain established a penal colony on the other side of the world.

The coproduction charts the lives and battle for survival of a group of convicts, the troops that guard them and men who govern them in the early days of the Australian settlement.