Kafka,’ ‘School of Champions’ Among Austria’s MipTV Selection
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Austrian television is awash with crime, mystery and historical drama, and the country’s biggest hits and new productions are heading to MipTV.
Among this year’s most anticipated titles is the upcoming “Kafka,” starring Swiss actor Joel Basman (“KaDeWe,” “The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbruch”) as the famed Bohemian writer.
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The six-part series is currently shooting in Vienna and Salzburg and is set to premiere on Austrian pubcaster ORF and Germany’s ARD early next year, commemorating the 100th anniversary of Franz Kafka’s death.
“Kafka” is produced by ARD, ORF and John Lueftner and David Schalko’s Vienna-based Superfilm. Schalko is directing and co-writing the series with bestselling author and screenplay writer Daniel Kehlmann (“Measuring the World”), based on the Kafka biography by Reiner Stach, who is also
advising the production.
Sold internationally by ORF-Enterprise, the public broadcaster’s commercial subsidiary, the series’ ensemble cast includes David Kross (“Davos”), Nicholas Ofczarek (“Pagan Peak”) and Liv Lisa Fries (“Babylon Berlin”).
ORF-Enterprise’s current line-up includes such MipTV highlights as “School of Champions,” a German-Austrian-Swiss co-production about the (fictional) Austrian Ski Academy, whose graduates regularly dominate professional skiing. Premiering in late 2023, the eight-part series follows four young skiers who make it through the grueling admissions process and begin a long journey in which they will face intense training, competition, love, betrayal, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.
Also heading to Cannes is Season 2 of “Soko Linz,” the successor of ORF’s hit crime series
“Soko Kitzbuehel.”
The first broadcasters and platforms have already committed to picking it up, says Armin Luttenberger, ORF-Enterprise’s head of content sales.
ORF-Enterprise is likewise presenting the critically acclaimed series “Days That Never Were,” an eight-part drama series that follows four women who have stuck together through thick and thin since they were girls at an elite school, but whose secrets and personal struggles threaten to tear them apart. Their friendship is put to the test when police begin investigating a possible murder.
The show, says Luttenberger, “gives buyers an idea of what quality to expect in the coming seasons.”
Written by Mischa Zickler, “Days That Never Were” is directed by Anna-Katharina Maier and Mirjam Unger and stars Jasmin Great, Franziska Weisz, Diana Amft and Franziska Hackl. It is produced by Vienna-based MR Film for ORF, ARD and ARD Degeto.
Luttenberger points out that “Days That Never Were” and “School of Champions” are examples of collaborations between public broadcasters in the German-speaking countries that represent a recent shift in the creative approach supported by Austria’s new film and TV
funding program.
“The recently implemented Austrian incentive model FISA+ is an additional tool which will help increase the creative output at such a high level. And we are ready to partner with the creative industry to make their content seen in the world as their distributor,” Luttenberger says.
Among ORF-Enterprise’s long-running detective series and one of its most successful exports is “Fast Forward,” which follows Vienna investigator Angelica Fast as she struggles to balance her demanding job and life as a single mother.
The series is produced by MR Film, the company behind Red Arrow Studios’ hit historical crime thriller “Vienna Blood.”
“We are looking back at an extremely successful era for ORF original drama,” Luttenberger says. “What started a few years ago when the crime series ‘Fast Forward’ went international with substantial sales in major European territories has now developed into a global demand for series made in Austria.
“‘Soko Kitzbuehel,’ as our long-running product with 270 episodes, celebrated its 20th and final season with recent sales of the series in Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Belgium as well as a pay-TV re-run in Germany,” he adds.
“Audiences also love the Vienna-based ‘Tatort’ team of investigators Bibi Fellner [played by Adele Neuhauser] and Moritz Eisner [Harald Krassnitzer]. The long-running series of movies have even made their journey over the Atlantic together with movies from ORF’s ‘Backwoods Crimes’ strand,” he says.
Like the “Tatort” format, “Backwoods Crimes” is an anthology crime drama movie series set in various parts of Austria that revolves around different teams of police investigators.
“Our crime drama strands ‘Soko,’ ‘Tatort,’ ‘Fast Forward’ and ‘Backwoods Crimes’ have always been important pillars of our fiction catalog and continue to do so,” Luttenberger says.
Indeed, crime is also a staple for Beta Film. The company is presenting “Camorra — Code of Honor,” a four-part miniseries produced by Berlin-based Good Friends Filmproduktion and Satel Film in Vienna for ServusTV, ZDF and MagentaTV. The story follows winemaker Matteo, whose idyllic life is shaken when his criminal past catches up with him and his family. Austrian actor Tobias Moretti and daughter Antonia Moretti star.
“Murder by the Lake,” likewise from Beta Film, follows an Austrian detective and her German colleague as they investigate cross-border crimes on the shores of Lake Constance. The series is produced by Rowboat Film and Fernsehproduktion and Graf Filmproduktion for ZDF and ORF.
Historical and costume dramas are another genre that has characterized Austrian television of late, leading to major successes like “Sisi” and “Vienna Blood.”
ORF recently boarded Beta Film’s forthcoming international production “Rise of the Raven,” a 10-hour historical series about the 1456 Battle of Belgrade and the defeat of the Ottomans by Hungarian military hero János Hunyadi.
Austrian history in particular remains popular material for both scripted and non-scripted fare, including the long and eventful Habsburg dynasty, which comprises the fateful reign of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, also known as Sisi.
“The intriguing personal affairs of the Habsburgs and the biographies of historic figures that lived in as well as outside their empire have always lent themselves to be adapted to engaging drama films and series,” notes Luttenberger.
“For this seasons’ catalog, we are proud to tell these stories as they really occurred: in our factual line-up. Our ‘Universum History’ strand has tackled the biographies of significant personalities, making them more engaging and relatable to the viewer through historic reenactments with talented actors and authentic set pieces, bringing the past back to life.
“The stories of Copernicus, Mary Stuart, Mary Tudor, Rudolf of Austria and Wilhelm of Prussia are even more exciting and tragic when they are depicted as they truly happened, as the past often writes the most amazing stories.”
ORF-Enterprise’s lineup is not limited to crime and history, however. Comedy series “Walking on Sunshine” revolves around a colorful ensemble of characters at a news broadcaster. The show follows a renowned former news anchor celebrating his comeback as a weather presenter after a long sick leave due to his excessive drinking. The series is produced by Dor Film for ORF.
Austria’s snow-covered mountains have also become indispensable landscapes in a number of Alpine thrillers that also explore the region’s folkloric traditions, among them Beta Film’s “Pagan Peak” and the company’s new series “Snow,” which even takes a step into the mystic.
Created by Michaela Taschek, “Snow” weaves the timely issue of climate change with supernatural elements into a suspenseful mystery drama set in the Alps. The series follows a family that has recently moved from the city to a mountain village, only for things to take a troubling turn when the daughter is visited by a mysterious woman.
“Snow” is produced by Vienna-based Primary Pictures and Berlin’s X Filme for ORF, Germany’s BR and NDR and German-Franco channel Arte. The series stars Brigitte Hobmeier, Robert Stadlober, Maria Hofstätter, Marie-Luise Stockinger and Stipe Erceg.
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