Beta stops Starfighter sales, explores Valley

Germany’s Beta Film has acquired distribution rights to pay channel TNT Serie’s drama The Valley – in the Midst of Silence, but will not sell new scripted series Starfighter after a recent real life plane tragedy.

Beta CEO Jan Mojto said the firm has halted distribution of Zeitsprung Pictures-created Starfighter after RTL pulled the show, which is about a little-known German 1960s scandal in which 116 pilots testing a new super-fast but unstable aircraft died in crashes.

This followed the recent Germanwings plane crash, which killed 150 people.

Beta will likely begin selling the show at MIPCOM. The firm had planned to screen the big budget telemovie to journalists at MIPTV, but decided against the move. It is pressing ahead with the launch of another post-World War II drama, Line of Separation.

Meanwhile, 6x60mins drama psychological Valley opens with a man that cannot remember his name waking up in a vineyard near the corpse of a woman hanging from a tree.

Bantry Bay Productions and Twenty Four 9 Films coproduce the show, which debuts as TNT Serie’s second original production later this year in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Turner Broadcasting System Deutschland operates TNT Serie, which is best known for acquired US dramas.