TV Drama Screenings Festival: ZDF Studios

ZDF Studios is highlighting the breadth of its extensive scripted slate in the TV Drama Screenings Festival, with highlights that include the brand-new three-parter Between Two Worlds, which is set in a small town in Germany in the 1950s.

“The U.S. military presence in West Germany in the early ’50s is paving the way for a new era of individual freedom, permissiveness and capitalism,” says Robert Franke, VP Drama. The story focuses on “two women who both strive to create lives for themselves during a time of great change, coming into conflict with the old order.”

White Night, meanwhile, is set in both the 1970s and modern day, combining family drama with a murder mystery. “The present day depicts the unraveling of the Hébert family following the premature death of their mother, Louise ‘Loulou’ Hébert,” says Mirela Nastase, director Drama. “A parallel era, 1970 to 1975, retraces pivotal moments in young Loulou’s life when she becomes a supermodel and launches her first perfume, White Night. Everything changes when Loulou is found dead, alone in the garden of her estate. Was it an accident? Or murder?”

ZDF Studios is also touting Agatha Christie’s Hjerson, a “playful, meta contemporary whodunit,” according to Sebastian Krekeler, director Drama.

Also on offer is the rebooted Spanish anthology Stories to Stay Awake. “The anthology revolutionized the Spanish television landscape back in the ’60s,” says Susanne Frank, director Drama. “Now, 50 years later, it returns to transform it once again. Directed by four genre talents, the resurrection of the legendary Spanish horror series entails four stand-alone episodes that pay homage to the past and are on the cutting edge of the future.”

Rounding out ZDF Studios’ TV Drama Screenings Festival highlights is the coming-of-age drama and post-apocalyptic disaster thriller Sløborn.