French indie studio Federation Entertainment (Pascal Breton, Lionel Uzan) is partnering with Paul Marquess (Suspects, The Bill, Footballers’ Wives) and Donna Wiffen (The Bill, Crime Stories, M.I.T) to create Long Story TV – a production company that will develop English language drama series.
Long Story TV’s development slate will kick off with Death in Bruges. This series of five x 2 part stories will see UK detectives investigate a string of seemingly unconnected murders in the historic Belgian town. The series kicks off when the body of a British tourist is fished out of a canal. The dead man turns out to have been an undercover British police officer…
Wiffen and Marquess first worked together at Thames Television where they ran The Bill and daily drama Family Affairs as well as ITV’s Murder Investigation Team (pictured) – a total of 200 hours of television per year. Having also worked together at FremantleMedia, Endemol and BBC Worldwide, the pair “have been looking for a commercial and creative partner to help them develop and fund a slate of quality, returning drama series.”
Long Story TV aims to create “commercial, cost-efficient, popular drama with a British sensibility – but that also has one eye on the international market.” Both will continue to serve as Managing Director for their respective production companies (Duchess Street and PGMTV).
Meanwhile Federation will handle international co-productions and sales. Four years after its launch, the studio created by Pascal Breton has a portfolio that includes The Bureau for Canal + Création Originale produced by TOP – The Oligarchs Productions in coproduction with Federation ; Marseille, the first French Netflix Original produced by Federation ; Bad Banks, a show that recently aired on ZDF and Arte ; and Undercover, a Flemish thriller that was presented during the Official Competition at Canneséries Festival.
Jon Creamer
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