Sales round-up: Cineflix sells to Nordics, Scorpion strikes Landmark sales

Cineflix Rights strikes Nordic sales 

The distributor has struck a raft of sales deals with Nordic broadcasters, totalling more than 200 hours of content, including moon landing doc The Day We Walked On The Moon. 

The Finestripe Productions-made doc for ITV and Smithsonian Networks US, which tells the inside story of the first moon landing 50 years ago, has been acquired by TV4 Sweden, DR Denmark, Neolonen Finland, and NRK Norway.

NRK Norway has also bought Sinking Cities (5 x 60 minutes; Cineflix Productions for PBS US and RMC France), which follows local planners, first-responders, scientists and engineers as they gear up for an epic battle with climate change, as well as The Wall (6 x 60 minutes, Rondo Media and JTV for S4C Wales and TG4 Ireland). 

Meanwhile, TV4 Sweden has acquired true-crime series Children Of The Snow (4 x 60 minutes; Cineflix Productions for Investigation Discovery US), and Paramedics: Emergency Response (12 x 30 minutes; Fahrenheit Films for CityTV Canada), which follows first responders as they race through the streets to answer 911 calls. 

Elsewhere, WWII’s Great Escapes: The Freedom Trails (4 x 60 minutes; Seadog Productions for Channel 4) has sold into SVT Sweden, DR Denmark, and Viasat World Nordics, and The Cold Blue (1 x 60 minutes; Creative Differences and Vulcan Productions for HBO) has been picked up by DR Denmark. Going to War (1 x 60 minutes; Vulcan Productions for PBS US and TPT US) has also sold to NRK Norway.

Cineflix Rights’ lifestyle slate, topped by Canadian reno icons Drew and Jonathan Scott, has also scored numerous sales, with pan-regional broadcaster Discovery Networks Nordic acquiring Property Brothers (Seasons 1-7, 169 x 60 minutes; Cineflix Productions for HGTV US and Canada) and Stöð 3 Iceland buying Brother vs Brother (Seasons 4-6, 18 x 60 minutes; Scott Brothers Entertainment for HGTV US).

The deals were brokered by Sandra Piha, SVP of programme sales for pan-regional, UK, Eire and Scandinavia at Cineflix Rights. 

Cineflix Rights will next week welcome buyers to London as part of UK Screenings.

Piha said: “Scandinavia continues to be a highly competitive market. The quality of some of the latest additions to Cineflix Rights’ catalogue is reflected in the volume of our recent sales across the region, which encompasses a range of genres including science, history, crime and investigation and lifestyle.”

Scorpion TV sends Landmarks Live in Concert to Brazil

London-based indie distributor Scorpion TV has sold docu-travel series Landmarks Live in Concert (7 x 60 minutes), which features world-famous bands performing in iconic venues, into Brazil’s TV Globo, as well as airlines in the US, UK and Italy via deals with inflight specialist Spafax.

Produced by City Drive Group, Landmarks Live in Concert is hosted by Red Hot Chilli Peppers drummer Chad Smith, who shares musical knowledge, personal stories and insights into the history, art and culture of the locations. Series one features such artists as The Foo Fighters, Alicia Keys, Andrea Bocelli, Will.i.am and The Black Eyed Peas performing in iconic locations around the world. 

Elsewhere, Destination Craft (13 x 30 minutes) has sold to i-Cable in Hong Kong and True Visions in Thailand. The Emmy-nominated series, produced by Canada’s Namaste Productions, introduces viewers to master artisans around the world, from Iceland’s horsehair jewelry-makers to India’s henna artists. 

David Cornwall, founder and MD of Scorpion TV, said: “On the back of the global interest in Landmarks Live in Concert, which is part music documentary and part travelogue, there’s been a notable uptick in demand for travel series that open windows on new worlds. In today’s divisive climate, there’s never been a greater need for programming that celebrates our common humanity, be it musical, artistic, cultural — or just the fact that we all share this amazing, surprising planet.”