ZDF has commissioned Iceland From Above (wt), a travel and adventure documentary from OTF Studios and Icelandic production company Sagafilm.

The documentary, which is currently in production, will air in the third quarter of 2025 on ARTE, before its official launch on ZDF’s Terra X strand.

OTF has also announced two new documentary series in its Wild… collection, again to be co-produced by OTF, its parent company ZDF Studios and ARTE. The two new documentaries — Wild Medics and Wild: Senses — follow Wild Talk (5 x 50 mins), which was unveiled in July.

The documentary has been produced on location in Iceland for the Terra X strand, which produces around 50 premium history, nature, archaeology and science documentaries a year. The two-part documentary will “showcase the Land of Fire and Ice as it has never been seen before — from high above its dramatic topography, which ranges from glittering glaciers, blue lagoons and steaming geysers to towering waterfalls, lunar landscapes and some of the world’s angriest and most active volcanoes. But Iceland is more than Volcanic amusement park: it is also home to a hardy and intrepid people, who choose to share a corner of the world with nature at her most unpredictable and extreme.”

Stefanie Fischer, OTF’s managing director, distribution, said: “Terra X is not only a byword for quality factual programming, but it’s also the showcase for Germany’s finest documentaries. As a non-domestic producer given the greenlight for a coveted Terra X slot, it is a major accomplishment and a real tribute to Sagafilms’ filmmaking excellence. Of course, we should also thank Iceland for its help in securing this milestone commission — if ever a country was created to be filmed from above, it’s the stunning, and stunningly varied, Land of Ice and Fire.”

The two new Wild… titles will be produced by the same creative team behind Wild Talk, which explores the rapidly evolving science of animal communication. Wild Medics and Wild: Senses are executive produced by Debbie Hinnigan and Andrew Zikking for OTF, Petra Boden for ARTE, and Nikolas Hülbusch and Ralf Rückauer for ZDF Studios. The series producer is BAFTA-winning filmmaker Ben Holder.

Jon Creamer

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