Topic takes on Italian, Swedish, Dutch, Danish crime thrillers from Newen

Crime thriller Christian (photo: Matteo Cantamessa Graia)

First Look Media-owned streamer Topic has acquired four European thrillers from TF1 and Newen Studios-owned distributor Newen Connect in the US and Canada.

Christian, Dough, The Spectacular and White Sands will join the streaming platform’s catalogue of exclusive crime and suspense thrillers from around the world.

It marks the first-ever deal between the two companies and comes as Topic looks to grow its slate of “truly unique, well-crafted crime stories not found anywhere else,” Jennifer Liang, VP of programming strategy, acquisitions and sales at Topic, said.

Christian is a six-episode series produced by Lucky Red for Sky Italia that follows a resident of a crime-ridden neighbourhood on the outskirts of Rome who apparently has the power to cure people with his hands.

Dough, meanwhile, is an eight-part crime drama about a divorced, financially strained mother in a Stockholm suburb who starts leading a double life when she accidentally finds five million euros from a failed robbery. It was commissioned by SVT in Sweden and the producers are Lisa Berggren Eyre and Martin Söder of Nexiko and Inland Films.

Produced by Netherlands-based Pupkin and VPRO, four-parter The Spectacular is based on a true story and follows an academic recruited for the criminal investigation into violent IRA attacks on British soldiers stationed in the Dutch region of Limburg.

Eight-episode series White Sands follows an undercover expert and a homicide detective who, pretending to be a married couple, are secretly sent to a Danish seaside town to solve the murder of a young German man. The series was produced by Deluca Films and TV2 in Denmark.

“These four critically acclaimed series reinforce our goal to curate and deliver the best crime-themed offerings worldwide,” Liang said.