Sony/Eleventh Hour First-Look Deal; BBC Sets Storyville Slate; ‘Eunuch Maker’ Heads To MIPCOM — Global Briefs

By Jesse Whittock, Stewart Clarke

September 20, 2024 2:53am

Sony/Eleventh Hour Signs Deal With Hill 5.14

Sony Pictures Television (SPT) and its UK subsidiary, Eleventh Hour Films, have struck a first-look deal with Hill 5.14, a Black female-led scripted TV label led by Tobi Olujinmi. Eleventh Hour will get a first-look option to co-develop and co-produce TV projects from the Hill 5.14 slate, with SPT acting as distributor. Olujinmi launched Hill 5.14 in late 2022, having previously worked as Eleventh Hour, and has gone on to work with writers such as Phoebe Okeowo (The Power), Bella Heesom (Sex Education), Victoria Asare-Archer (Missing You) and Thara Poopla (Sex Education) and on-screen talent such as Weruche Opia (I May Destroy You), Adelayo Adebayo (The Responder) and Adjoa Andoh (Bridgerton). “I am beyond thrilled to be working with Sony Pictures and EHF for the next phase of Hill 5.14’s journey,” said Olujinmi. “It’s the dream team. Their joint expertise, experience and track record of delivering exceptional drama will help in building Hill 5.14 as a global production company, one which houses some of the best global diverse storytellers and takes our stories, which were once hidden, and places them like a light on a hill for the global marketplace.” This comes after Sony increased its shareholding in Moonflower Murders maker Eleventh Hour to a majority stake over the summer.

BBC Rolls Out Storyville Slate

The BBC’s international documentaries strand Storyville has unveiled its fall slate. As previously announced, the BBC will play the HSCC, Sipur, Bitachon365, MGM and See It Now Studios doc We Will Dance Again, titling it locally Surviving October 7th: We Will Dance Again. The feature, which will play on BBC Two and iPlayer and form a group of programs marking the anniversary, provides a harrowing glimpse into the brutal Hamas-led attack on the Nova Music Festival during the assault on Israel last year. Headed to BBC Four is War Game, the Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber-directed thriller doc following members of the U.S. government, defense and intelligence agencies spanning five presidential administrations as they undergo a role-play exercise confronting a coup on American democracy by rogue members of the U.S. military after a contested election. Boat Rocker Studios, Anonymous Content, The Littlefield Co. and Matador teamed to make the doc, in which the players have just six hours to save democracy. Other docs headed to Storyville include Ibraham Nash’at’s Hollywoodgate, Natasha Cox’s Life and Death in Gaza, David Whitney’s Dogs of War, German AI doc Eternal You, Russian non-binary performance feature Queendom, and the Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó-directed Agent of Happiness.

Marcel Theroux’s True Crime Doc ‘The Eunuch Maker’ Headed To Market

Blue Ant Studios has landed rights to dark true-crime doc The Eunuch Maker. The project follows journalist Marcel Theroux as he explores a notorious case that involved a group of men performing castrations and live-streaming them to paying customers. The man in charge, the ‘Eunuch Maker,’ was accused of being a cult-like leader of a group that severed genitals and sold body parts. Future Studios and Krempelwood produced the doc for Hearst Networks EMEA, which is the new identity of A+E Networks EMEA. Blue Ant’s distribution arm will launch sales on the doc, which is available as a two-parter or a single, at the MIPCOM Cannes market next month. It has worldwide rights (excl-UK).