Sundance picks up BBC2’s Woman

Sundance Channel has come onboard as US coproduction partner for new BBC2 drama An Honourable Woman, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Dark Knight).

The eight-part miniseries is a thriller written and directed by Bafta winner Hugo Blick (The Shadow Line) and executive produced by Drama Republic’s Greg Brenman (Low Winter Sun, Billy Elliot) and produced by Abi Bach (Small Island).

“The Honourable Woman is scintillating drama; it is both a tightly plotted international political thriller and a superbly wrought character piece about hope, compromise, guilt and families,” said Sundance Channel president Sarah Barnett.

The deal continues Sundance’s moves into original production that began with dramas Rectify and The Descendants.

An Honourable Woman, announced by BBC2 last year, is described as “a fast-paced, labyrinthine thriller set against an international political backdrop.”

Gyllenhaal plays a woman who inherits her father’s arms dealing company after his death and who later is appointed to the UK’s House of Lords. The series is being made by Eight Rooks Productions and Drama Republic for BBC2, with Sundance as copro partner.

The show is set in the UK, the Middle East and the US, and will shoot on location from mid-July. It will air on Sundance Channel in the US and BBC2 in the UK in 2014.