In the first of a series of interviews with leading production and distribution companies in Central and Eastern Europe ahead of this year’s NATPE Budapest, Broadband TV News speaks with Petr Bílek, Founder, Producer of the Czech Republic’s FilmBrigade.
FilmBrigade celebrated its 10th anniversary this January. How did it come into being and what have been the company’s main milestones over the last decade?
We have always wanted to produce quality mainstream television, which was something only a few companies were able to deliver at that time. Only a few months after establishing the company we sold our first TV series The Airport to TV Prima. We produced two episodes (50 minutes each) per week for the next two years for them. So this was our start up. Over the years we have produced many other series, which include a Czech adaptation of the well-known British series Cold Feet, the relationships-oriented Miracles of Life or the comedy series The Cabinet.
What have been your most successful productions to date and where have they appeared?
In 2013 we developed and produced our first project for the public broadcaster Czech TV under the title The Lens. An ambitious crime miniseries about a young photographer who joins an elite team of police investigators, it was also selected by European Broadcast Union as one of the most inspiring scripted format of the year.
This winter FilmBrigade debuted in cinemas with the epic feature Wilson City, shot as a co-production between the Czech and Slovak Republics and supported by Eurimages. A comedy inspired by paperback crime novels, it tells the story of an adventurous search for a mysterious murderer who just after the end of the First World War began a rampage in Wilson City, a jerkwater town somewhere in Eastern Europe. The investigation is led by an inhomogeneous pair of detectives: a greenhorn and local police cadet named Eisner and an experienced FBI officer Food, who has been sent to Europe by US President Woodrow Wilson.
What productions are you currently working on?
Our current hottest project is called The Brothers, miniseries based on one of the greatest and true stories of the Cold War. In October 1953, five friends who constitute a small resistance group decide to leave communist Czechoslovakia and get to West Berlin. At the beginning of the month, they all together cross the guarded border but are soon detected in East German territory; unknowingly, they initiate the largest manhunt of the 20th century. Twenty thousand German police and Soviet Army members are mobilised, all because of five teenage guys trying to get to freedom.
Have you sold any productions outside the Czech Republic? If so, which ones and to who? If not, do you plan to do so in the future?
The crime series The Lens was sold to Poland and Great Britain. Some projects were distributed in the Slovak Republic, but this I do not count as a foreign country, to be honest, as we have so much in common including the language. Czech films and series do not travel around the globe that often, but our biggest ambitions are currently linked with The Brothers miniseries. We are working on bringing German and Polish investment on board.
FilmBrigade signed a scripted format deal with Sony Pictures Television (SPT) a while back. How did that develop and are there plans to enter into similar agreements with other partners?
With Sony we produced 12 episodes of a local adaptation of the US sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond last year. We had this feeling that there might be a space for classical family sitcom adaptation so we tried hard to get the rights for the best one. I think that three years passed between our first phone call to Sony and the actual production and at the end of the day we were lucky selling the project to the public broadcaster Czech TV, where they had opened a new sitcom slot at that time. There have also been plans for doing a local version of Mad About You but we couldn’t find a market for this. Channels do prefer one-hour comedy shows rather than sitcoms.
Recently we have signed an option deal with Red Arrow International for the German crime series Der Letzte Bulle, which is also successful in France, Russia or Japan. We will see what comes out of it. We are already developing the show for one commercial broadcaster.
How have you been helped by the European Union’s Media Programme?
The Media Programme has supported the development of our slate of feature film projects, some of them are still in development and one already in cinemas.
Looking at the Czech production market as a whole, how competitive is it? Does FilmBrigade have a particular niche in the market?
It is extremely competitive for such a tiny country. I hope that others see FilmBrigade as a reliable and strong partner on the domestic market, which is able to not only adapt successful foreign scripted formats but also develop and finance its own projects.
How do you see FilmBrigade developing over the next few years?
As the Czech market and its potential is very limited and we are already producing series, features and commercials. We would like to be involved in bigger international projects with a much wider reach.
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