TVREAL
Off The Fence (OTF) has entered into a development deal with Emmy Award-winning U.S. journalists Gloria Gomez and Robin Carter for new true-crime content.
Under the partnership, OTF will co-develop and produce new true-crime series based on the intelligence, access and contacts amassed by Gomez and Carter during their careers as investigative journalists on the U.S. domestic beat.
The first project to come from the new partnership is Love & Death Row: The Rosalie Bolin Story, a true-crime series based on Gomez and Carter’s investigation into the case of rapist and serial killer Oscar Ray Bolin, who was convicted of the murder of three women in Florida. Enter Rosalie Martinez, a paralegal married to a prominent defense attorney, who met Bolin in 1995 when she visited his cell on death row to discuss his case. The meeting left Martinez “breathless” and determined to prove Bolin’s innocence. She left her husband and four daughters, resigned from the public defender’s office and embarked on an intense relationship with Bolin, becoming his wife in 1996 via a speaker-phone ceremony. They remained together until his execution in 2016. Martinez has rebuilt her life as a private investigator and death-penalty mitigation specialist.
Celine Ritchie, head of development at OTF, said: “The experiences and perspectives of those who have been on the frontline of stranger-than-fiction cases exert a powerful fascination—and it would be difficult to find a stranger or more powerful story than Love & Death Row, or two more reliable or insightful witnesses than Gloria and Robin. One of Off the Fence’s particular strengths is its ability to forge creative partnerships with people who have great stories waiting to be told.”
Separately, in another U.S. co-development partnership, OTF has teamed up with Makuhari Media on the feature documentary King of Kandahar. The three-part series chronicles the life of Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Iqbal Selanee, a teenage interpreter for the U.S. forces in Afghanistan who rose to command an elite, CIA-directed paramilitary unit. An unsung hero of modern warfare, Selanee saved the lives of two U.S. journalists and shielded hundreds of Afghans stranded at Kandahar Air Base, jeopardizing the lives of his own family to ensure the safety of his American comrades.
