ZDF Enterprises Unveils Tabula Rasa

The psychological thriller Tabula Rasa was screened at MIPCOM today, with World Screen’s Anna Carugati moderating a panel discussion with co-writer and showrunner Malin-Sarah Gozin, co-writer and star Veerle Baetens, VRT’s Olivier Goris, ZDF’s Sebastian Lückel and ZDF Enterprises’ Fred Burcksen.

“Veerle was fascinated by a female lead who was psychologically confused,” said Gozin on the origins of the show. “I was always fascinated by amnesia stories. Those two ingredients fit perfectly together. Tabula Rasa is the result.”

Co-creators Gozin and Baetens shared the writing process. “It took us five years,” Baetens noted. “We started in 2011/12, sitting together once a month or twice a month, just sharing thoughts, watching movies, talking about books, and then Christophe Dirickx came in and that’s when we started working on a treatment. He’d come from London for a week, we’d work on it and then go home.”

Carugati asked about the show’s innovative narrative structure. “There are two different timelines,” Gozin said. “The present, where Veerle is stuck in an institution and gets visited by an inspector who believes she’s the sole key in a disappearance case. She has to dig into her memory, her recent past, to find out what happened to the guy [who has disappeared]. That takes us to the past, where she moves into an old house in the woods.”

Goris, channel manager of één at VRT, said the project was first presented to the broadcaster in 2014. “We immediately felt a rush of excitement because we saw the huge potential of the project. We also felt it was really important that we be able to create the production value that was high enough [to match] the content.”

VRT then collaborated with ZDF and ZDF Enterprises, which is distributing the show globally, to round out the financing.

Lückel, commissioning editor at ZDF, said when he saw the pitch, “it’s one of those shows where you want to know more…. There is so much talent coming out of Belgium these days. With this show [signing up as a co-pro partner] was a no-brainer. It would have been hard not to work with them.”

Goris added that ZDF’s early involvement was extremely beneficial. “It made the project stronger than we could have done it on our own.”

For ZDF Enterprises, Tabula Rasa is a key launch for MIPCOM. Burcksen, executive VP and COO, noted, “We really like the genre mix and the strong women leads in the series.”