ORF Showcasing Range of Genres

VIENNA: Programs on offer from the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) span feature films, series, TV movies, factual and formats, including the new multimedia reality show Taxi Orange.

In the way of feature films, The Mail Bomber tells the story of Franz Fuchs, who sent out mail bombs in Austria to innocent citizens, among them the former mayor of Vienna. The movie is accompanied by the documentary The Mail Bomber: Unsolved Questions.

ORF’s fiction slate includes new episodes of the crime series Fast Forward and K-files. The family dramedy The Wine Tycoon is also on offer. Ahead of MIPTV, ORF has already scored a deal in France for the HDTV movie Bear on the Run, and will present the 90-minute offering for further international sales. Another HD movie, Home for Sale, is a 90-minute romantic comedy, while The First Day is a catastrophe movie.

Factual titles from the Universum strand on offer include the HD documentaries The Wild Balkans and The Karst: Life Between Heaven and Hell. Wildlife docs include The Great Rift, Dragonflies: Jewels of the Skies and Hedgehog Heaven, as well as Wasteland Warriors, centered on wildlife in the city. ORF History is offering 20 hours of programming, including a 2×50-minute title on the first world war and a 6×50-minute title on WW II. Hitler’s Counterfeiters tells the real story behind the Oscar-nominated picture The Counterfeiters, and Hitler’s Mountaineers tells the stories of explorers, using pictures and footage from places like the Sahara Desert, India, Egypt and Peru.

Centered on science are Energy 2050, Light-years Ahead, The Light of the Future and Solar City. Current demographic issues take center stage in titles such as Third Age Moving and The Future of Aging, while ethics and finance are examined in Making Billions: Between Greed and Ethics and The Collapse of the Golden Calf. Health care and belief are dealt with in Aids Kills: The Fight Against Aids, Miracles, Buddha, Freud and Tao: Psychosomatic Medicine in the East and West, Can Belief Heal? and Mephisto: The System of Temptation. There are also a host of factual offerings that deal with religion, including Liberation Theology and the Vatican, Killing in the Name of Allah and God is with Us.

A range of lifestyle programming, from travel, design, architecture and food will be available in the new ORF catalogue as well. Meanwhile, Taxi Orange will be available for format licensing.

Beatrice Riesenfelder, the head of sales and acquisitions, said: "Due to the worldwide financial cut-backs, the production output generally declines. Therefore, the channels need to acquire more programs. We are really happy that in these difficult times, ORF Sales is able to deliver such a broad range of high-quality and entertaining programs for all target groups."