Sundance Stocks Up on New Titles

NEW YORK, June 23:
Sundance Channel has ordered two new original factual series for launch next
year—one from the producers of The Staircase and the other from Taxicab Confessions’ Gantz brothers—and has pre-bought 12
documentaries for its weekly block DOCday.

The cable channel has given
a greenlight to Maha Productions’ Sin City Law, an eight-part series currently filming in Las
Vegas that follows the intense rivalry between a pro-death penalty District
Attorney and an ex-prosecutor turned public defender. It is a production of
Denis Poncet and Jean-Xavier De Lestrade (The Staircase, Murder on a Sunday
Morning) and is slated to premiere
in the second half of 2007.

Pleasure for Sale takes an unflinching look at the political,
religious, and economic realities of prostitution by chronicling the inner
workings of a legal brothel in Pahrump, Nevada. The six-part series was created
by Joe and Harry Gantz (Taxicab Confessions, Sex with Strangers).

Laura Michalchyshyn, the
EVP of programming and marketing, noted, “In one year, we have increased the
number of original series and one-off documentaries on Sundance Channel by 100
percent. Together with the six or seven acquired series we plan to offer next
year and the over 275 exclusive features, documentaries and shorts we will
program, we are delivering against our promise that Sundance Channel will
consistently offer its audience exclusive, provocative, and entertaining
programming—insuring that when viewers are seeking something different on
television we are there.”

Sundance has also pre-bought
12 documentary co-productions for broadcast in the Monday 12-hour DOCday slot between August 2006 and 2008. “DOCday has become appointment television for the Sundance
Channel viewer,” Michalchyshyn said. “With 52 DOCday premiere slots to fill each year, these
co-productions are consistent with the provocative and entertaining programming
our viewers have come to expect. Looking out for strong documentary material in
the early stages of production gives us the opportunity to be creatively
involved with some great films and strengthens our relationships with directors
and producers from all over the world,”

The acquisitions are 100
Films and A Funeral, the tale of
Polygram films and its founder Michael Kuhn; An Antarctic Spring focusing on the stories of three teams of
scientists pursuing their research in Antarctica; As Seen Through These Eyes, the story of child Holocaust victims through the
artwork they created; Carny, a
look at a traveling carnival; Dust to Dust: The Health Effects of 9/11, a CBS News production; Flipping Out, about discharged Israeli solders; Godless in
America, from Leslie Woodhead; Guest
of Cindy Sherman, about the
renowned visual artist; Kike Like Me, a comic road movie about what it means to be Jewish; The Man Who
Could Be King, the story of the
King of the Anuyaks tribe in southern Sudan; Naked on the Inside, following six people from around the world as
they create a series of portraits; and Saving Jazz, on the occasion of the anniversary of Hurricane
Katrina.