Multi-Country Co-Pro Pact for Farewell Shanghai

Producers and broadcasters from China, France, Germany and Australia have aligned for the international scripted series Farewell Shanghai.

The drama has been developed by screenwriter and director Radu Mihaileanu (The Concert, The Source, Live & Become, Train of Life…) and is adapted from Angel Wagenstein’s epic novel. The series recounts the shared destinies of a group of European Jewish refugees and Chinese characters in Shanghai, between 1938 and 1945.

The series will be shot in China in English by K’ien Productions, Banijay Studios France, Breakout Films and France Télévisions (France); Shanghai Media Group Pictures and Holy Mountain Films (China); AMPCO Studios (Australia) and NDF (Germany). An extended Chinese version of the series will also be produced for the Chinese market.

Takis Candilis, the head of fiction at Banijay Group, commented, “We are extremely pleased to be partnering with such an illustrious alliance of talent and producers to recreate this mesmerizing story for the screen.”

Wendy Xioalan Zhan, CEO of Holy Mountain Pictures, added, “This is real history; we hope through the series, which will be filmed entirely in China, everyone will get to know this epic period. It will also show the friendship between Chinese people and Jewish people, the resistance to oppression and the spirit of offering timely help to each other.”

David Kodsi and Julien Rouch from K’ien Productions commented, “Farewell Shanghai is an intense, fabulous and romantic drama series, which will take viewers from the carefree bohemia of late 1930s Paris to the charm of the Orient and expose the intrigues and excesses of the French ex-patriots in Shanghai.”

Eric Welbers, CEO of NDF, commented, “Radu Mihaileanu is an exceptional talent and Farewell Shanghai will bring together the universal themes that infuse all his work—identity, love, music, exile and the fragility of the human condition when confronted with the chaos of history.”

Mario Andreacchio, executive director at AMPCO Studios, added, “We are very proud to be bringing our experience and resources in China to help realize this historically significant project under China’s ‘One Belt One Road’ policy of collaboration with Europe.”