ZDF Studios, Impossible Factual Uncover New Historical Evidence in Docs

ZDF Studios and Impossible Factual, who have already partnered on several documentaries, are teaming up again on two programs that explore fascinating events from the past. On the 150th anniversary of Heinrich Schliemann’s discovery of the ancient city of Troy, Troy: The Schliemann Legacy revisits old controversies and uncovers new archaeological evidence of the site of the Trojan War. Black Death Patient Zero traces the origins of the deadliest pandemic in history. Jonathan Drake, the CEO of Impossible Factual, and Nikolas Hülbusch, Directed Unscripted at ZDF Studios, discuss these two captivating programs, their innovative visual styles and the experts who provide new research.

TV REAL: How did Troy: The Schliemann Legacy come about?
DRAKE: We are always looking for great stories of where history and science meet. This one had even more—an anniversary, 150 years since Schliemann published his findings at Troy—and maybe the oldest of all history mysteries: People have been questioning whether the stories about the Trojan War are true for 2,500 years. We brought the idea to ZDF Studios and to ARTE, who have both been big supporters of our projects in the past, and together we assembled the finance package to get us to production.

TV REAL: What will viewers see and learn that they didn’t know before?
DRAKE: This documentary provides not only the latest information about archaeological evidence for the Trojan War but also examines something very new—the archaeology of archaeology! At the University of Amsterdam, there is amazing work going on analyzing 150 years of digging at Troy, and we can clearly see how Schliemann made it very difficult for everyone who came after, because he had the wrong idea of how deep he would have to dig to find the legendary city, and destroyed so much vital evidence digging down to it.

TV REAL: How are modern archaeology techniques confirming or correcting Schliemann’s claims?
DRAKE: Few experts now doubt that Schliemann found Troy. But as he began to realize before he died, we now know the site is made up of multiple archaeological layers spanning 3,000 years of history. So, which one might be the scene of the Trojan War? Over generations of work, Schliemann’s successors at Troy and elsewhere can now point to one particular layer, known as Troy VIIa, as the one that evidence suggests was completely destroyed in war at about the right time. But we don’t know if it was the Greeks who were responsible. And this happened when the world was in a state of catastrophic upheavals—conflict, migration, famine and a backdrop of climate change over a very wide area, including Greece.

TV REAL: Why does Troy continue to fascinate?
DRAKE: At heart, it’s because Troy has been made a legend by an incredible feat of storytelling, as if it were the subject of the world’s most successful movie. Homer’s Iliad is, so far as we know, the oldest in the Western canon. It’s lasted so long because it’s so good, and its characters—Achilles, Helen of Troy, Odysseus, Hector and all the rest—and their stories stay with you.
HÜLBUSCH: Especially here in Germany (but not only), Schliemann is the first name to come to many people’s minds when they are asked to think about a famous archaeologist. The romanticized idea of someone with Homer in one hand and a shovel in the other, discovering an ancient city, is still fascinating—and challenging this somewhat naïve concept is great brain food for many viewers all over the world.

TV REAL: How did Black Death Patient Zero come about?
DRAKE: We contacted Dr. Philip Slavin after we read coverage of his paper that claimed he had finally solved the enduring mystery of where the Black Death originated. Through him, we gained access to the work of his collaborators at the Max Planck Institutes and the University of Tübingen in Germany. Around this access, we built a holistic narrative that charted the rampaging disease through Medieval Europe and beyond.

TV REAL: What will viewers see and learn that they didn’t know before?
DRAKE: Black Death Patient Zero reveals, for the first time, the origin of the deadliest pandemic in history. Bringing together scholarship from multiple disciplines, the film uncovers how this deadly disease tore through Medieval Europe, not only killing millions but also leaving lasting impressions on the architecture, art and literature of the time. The documentary reveals that most active strains of plague bacteria still present in many parts of the world today can be traced back directly to this 14th-century outbreak of the disease. It also showcases the groundbreaking work being done by modern immunologists trying to render plague a disease of the past.

TV REAL: How did the Black Death help reshape societies, economies and belief systems?
DRAKE: The film describes how the Black Death left its mark on the European continent beyond the deaths of tens of millions of people. In the Tuscan city of Siena—where as many as 60 percent of the population are believed to have been killed by the disease—we discover the architectural scars left by the pandemic: in particular, the unfinished cathedral, which would have been one of the largest in all of Christendom. Through the writings of Sienese merchant Agnolo di Tura and those of the poet Boccaccio in nearby Florence, we learn that the huge death toll inflicted by the plague began to erode Church authority and caused many survivors to abandon lives of religious modesty in favor of seeking more material pleasures.

TV REAL: Are there correlations between the aftermath of the Black Death and the aftermath of other pandemics? Covid-19 as well?
DRAKE: There are clear parallels between the aftermath of the Black Death and the Covid-19 pandemic: global trade and economies—local, national and international—took a hit due to vast numbers of the workforce killed or temporarily incapacitated by disease. In both cases, the disease continued to circulate in the population long after the peak of the pandemic had subsided, meaning that people learned to live with the possibility of new spikes in infection, and, relatively quickly, found ways to return to the normal rhythms of life. One key difference between the pandemics, however, is their order of magnitude: while somewhere in the region of 7 to 8 million people are believed to have died during the Covid-19 pandemic, many historians believe the death toll during the Black Death was somewhere in the region of 200 million people.
HÜLBUSCH: It’s definitely a different scale, even more if you take into account the percentage of casualties among the world population. Nevertheless, since 2020, we all have a much more concrete idea of what a pandemic looks and feels like than before. Therefore, we expect and have already registered a big interest among broadcasters from all over the world in the topic.

TV REAL: Tell us about your commitment to new visual techniques and styles, and what are some recent examples?
DRAKE: At Impossible Factual, we have a long history of delivering programs that combine our award-winning research with distinctive, innovative visual approaches, frequently employing both hand-drawn and computer-generated animation. In our recent film The Lost Scrolls of Vesuvius (Channel 5, PBS, France Télévisions, SBS and ZDF Studios), we used bleeding edge CGI to create photorealistic videos of the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum; in our series The Secrets to Civilization (Curiosity Stream, Off the Fence), we re-created the cityscapes of Athens and Rome with unprecedented accuracy; and in Black Death Patient Zero, we used CGI animation to create extensively researched, authentic 14th century Italian interiors into which to place our characters. In Troy: The Schliemann Legacy, we use animation to remind the audience of the key story beats of the Trojan War legend. And we chose a really distinctive style, based on extraordinarily decorated pottery that dates from around the time Homer would have been writing, and in which you can see ships, chariots, warriors and women who echo those described in Homer’s epic poems.

TV REAL: How are high-end docs satisfying buyers’ needs?
DRAKE: At a time when the market is more fragmented than ever, high-end docs in the specialist factual space still have a big part to play. New science and archaeology constantly challenge accepted narratives of the past, and finding innovative and engaging ways to tell these stories is essential to keeping audiences engaged with subjects of perennial interest. Impossible Factual continues to be at the forefront when it comes to producing content that reimagines and reevaluates the biggest stories from history.
HÜLBUSCH: History is generally one of the factual genres with the most faithful international audience, and it has been the cornerstone of ZDF Studios’ unscripted catalog for more than 30 years now. Of course, there are numerous series retelling well-known historical stories in various stylistic ways, either based on archive footage or, recently, AI reconstructions. And they all have their right to exist and their committed international audiences. But films that focus on new archaeological discoveries, where viewers can witness history “in the making,” well-known stories being rewritten, have a very special fascination in and of themselves. In a way, it’s the Champions League of history documentaries!