ZDF Enterprises Shores Up Sales in Cannes

ZDF Enterprises, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, has notched up sales across its drama, documentary, entertainment and kids’ portfolios at MIPCOM.

ZDFE.entertainment signed a sales contract with Cirque du Soleil that entitles the company to broadcast across Europe the new production of O at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, as well as TV, pay-TV and VOD marketing across the German-speaking sphere of the entire future Cirque du Soleil catalog.

On the drama front, Walter Presents has taken new seasons of Wataha and Thicker Than Water, in addition to acquiring Before We Die, Maltese and Helen Dorn. SRF licensed three new seasons of SOKO Leipzig and acquired licenses for four others. Lead actress Veerle Baetens and showrunner Malin-Sarah Gozin were at the market to present the thriller series Tabula Rasa.

As for factual highlights, Size Matters was sold to NHK, while Big Pacific was taken by EBS Korea. Project Nazi went to RMC Découverte and Viasat World, which also acquired the six-parter The Story of Europe for their territories.

ZDFE.junior sold Scream Street and the first season of The Jungle Book for its CEE-wide SVOD service. Hungarian Telekom acquired a package of about 140 hours of animation and live action for its SVOD service Videotéka and TVGO Movieclub. The package includes three seasons of Dance Academy and the animated titles Coconut, the Little Dragon and Lassie. Dance Academy: The Comeback and accompanying miniseries will air on free TV in the Netherlands (NPO) and Belgium (VRT) in 2018. The new licenses include extensions to those already existing for the series.