Keeper Pictures Nabs Rights to Finding Samantha Podcast Series

The Dublin-based production company Keeper Pictures (The Gone, Extra Ordinary) has optioned the rights to adapt the RTÉ Documentary On One true-crime podcast series Finding Samantha as a drama series.

The podcast documents the story of Australian con artist Samantha Azzopardi, who has created more than 100 false identities since she embarked upon her career of fraud and deception as a 14-year-old in Brisbane. Emilia di Girolamo (Three Pines, The Tunnel: Vengeance) is on board as showrunner.

The podcast and the forthcoming TV adaptation begin in 2013, when a distressed 14-year-old girl was picked up outside the General Post Office in Dublin. She appeared too traumatized to speak. She was taken to a children’s hospital by the Garda, who assumed she was a victim of child trafficking. After a month-long investigation into her identity produced no leads, the police released a photograph of the mute teenager, which resulted in a call from the other side of the world, revealing that the girl was actually a 25-year-old Australian named Samantha Azzopardi—a serial con woman and psychological enigma.

“I’m thrilled to partner with Keeper Pictures and the brilliant RTÉ Documentary On One journalists to bring this extraordinary story to screen,” di Girolamo said. “Samantha Azzopardi embodies a new breed of ‘emotional con woman’ trading in attention and sympathy, and her story sits perfectly within our cultural fascination with complex female criminals. Like the podcast, the drama is a psychological excavation that explores the driving forces behind her compulsive deceptions, as well as the damage she inflicted on her many vulnerable victims. The series also delves into the cat-and-mouse games Samantha played with the podcast team, creating a multi-layered narrative that’s as much about the pursuit of truth as it is about deception itself.”

Yvonne Donohoe, creative director and producer at Keeper Pictures, commented, “Alongside listeners from around the world, we at Keeper Pictures were captivated not only by Samantha Azzopardi’s story but also the nuanced and balanced way this podcast, and these journalists in particular, interpret, understand and tell this knotty, fascinating, intense, emotional and thrilling true-crime story. We are delighted to have secured the screen rights for the podcast and to be collaborating with a brilliant showrunner who shares our passion for this story but also wants to treat the material with sensitivity and integrity as we bring this story to life in an ambitious, engrossing, water-cooler limited TV drama series.”

Edel Edwards, head of program sales at RTÉ Programme Sales, added, “In the last couple of years, there’s been a flood of interest in our Doc On One podcast series, as producers have realized they represent a rich source of untold true-crime stories. Finding Samantha totally fits that description, and with the brilliant Emilia in charge of migrating the extraordinary and vulnerable story of Samantha Azzopardi from podcast to screen, we have no doubt that it will make for irresistible viewing. Keeper Pictures’ track record in brilliant drama and, crucially, the ability to tell a story without sensationalism and with utmost respect means it is in the best hands.”