TCB Acquires Feature Doc The $50m Art Swindle

TCB Media Rights has picked up Top Hat Productions’ The $50m Art Swindle, signaling the London-based rights-ownership and distribution company’s move into high-end feature-length documentaries.

The 90-minute The $50m Art Swindle is centered on rogue New York art dealer Michel Cohen who went on the run after conning the art establishment out of more than $50 million. Eighteen years after the 2000 swindle, filmmaker Vanessa Engle (The Funeral Murders) tracked Cohen down and persuaded him to share his story. The doc delves into Cohen’s psyche and shines a light on the underbelly of the international art market. Commissioned by the BBC’s Mark Bell for the Arena art strand, The $50m Art Swindle is slated to air on BBC Two this summer.

TCB has also commissioned the three-part docuseries How I Created a Cult from Conscious Life, developed in conjunction with Spring Films. The series follows Andrew Cohen’s journey from a spiritual leader and enlightenment seeker to the head of a global cult, revealing how he came to subject his followers to life-threatening punishments, mock amputations, brainwashing, extortion and psychological abuse. How I Created a Cult is drawn from 60 hours of original interviews with students and victims, more than 200 hours of archive footage and a series of interviews with Cohen himself.

Jimmy Humphrey, head of acquisitions and co-productions at TCB Media Rights, said: “We certainly don’t want to forget our heartland of factual and factual entertainment; this is our lifeblood and it’s what the buyers know us for. However, with these two shows in particular it allows us to make a less clunky, more obvious move into the premium space. These two projects reflect the polarization of the market that we now see across many platforms, that is, between big-budget ‘noisy’ and lower budget higher volume. Both areas have to perform quickly however and TCB is set up to flex and exploit the unscripted market and these are two hugely standout, well-crafted stories.”