ZDF Studios Picks Up Turbokultur’s The Zweiflers

ZDF Studios has come on board as the global distributor for the new drama The Zweiflers, about a dysfunctional extended Jewish family.

The six-part series is produced by Berlin-based Turbokultur in co-production with ARD Degeto Film and Hessischer Rundfunk for ARD and was supported by Hessen Film, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, FFF Bayern and GMPF (German Motion Picture Fund). The drama will be available in German, English, Russian and Yiddish.

In the series, family patriarch and Holocaust survivor Symcha Zweifler wants to sell his delicatessen empire when suddenly he is confronted with his past in Frankfurt’s red light district just after World War II—an acid test for the whole family as long-suppressed conflicts resurface.

In Germany, the series will premiere on the ARD Mediathek in the spring and will also be shown on Das Erste in the near future.

The showrunner and creator of The Zweiflers is David Hadda, who wrote the screenplay along with Juri Sternburg and Sarah Hadda. Turbokultur Co-CEO Martin Danish also acted as producer of the series. The Zweiflers is directed by Anja Marquardt (The Girlfriend Experience season three, She’s Lost Control) and Clara Zoë My-Linh von Arnim (Feelings, Echt and Druck), while Phillip Kaminiak was responsible for the camera work.

The cast includes Aaron Altaras (Unorthodox, Deutsches Haus), Saffron Coomber (Three Little Birds, Small Axe), Sunnyi Melles (Kaiser Karl, Triangle of Sadness), Mark Ivanir(Heart of Stone, Schindler’s List) and Eleanor Reissa (The Walking Dead, The Plot Against America).

Hadda, CEO of Turbokultur and showrunner of The Zweiflers, said: ”Our aim was simply to tell the story of a Jewish family living in Germany without having to explain ourselves. The more specific our characters, the more universal our story becomes. We have achieved this by creating our show as thoughtfully and authentically as possible at all levels of production.”

Sebastian Krekeler, Director Drama, ZDF Studios: “It’s only once in a while that you come across a family drama with such distinctive characters, wonderfully portrayed by a great international cast. Nuanced with emotional family and cultural conflicts, The Zweiflers is a tragicomedy that many people will relate to regardless of their religion and background.”