BLUE ANT INTERNATIONAL CLOSES THE SALE OF 320 HOURS OF PROGRAMMING

Blue Ant International signed various new licensing deals in multiple territories worldwide. The sale includes more than 320 hours of programming across key genres, including factual entertainment, specialist factual, high-impact documentaries, and kids and family programming. “In these unprecedented times, we are in constant virtual contact with our buyers around the world, helping them curate their slates and fill content pipelines to ensure audiences always have access to something fresh and compelling,” says Ludo Dufour, SVP, International Co-Productions and Sales, Blue Ant International. “Blue Ant International’s library offers our partners a lineup that includes award-winning natural history and high-impact documentaries, trusted kids and family programming, and a factual category that includes escapist, binge-worthy shows that everyone is hungry for.” 

Broadcasters within the U.S., U.K., Canada, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia have picked up a broad range of series and documentaries, which points to the breadth of the distributor’s diverse offering. Sales have been secured for four of its series with multiple top-tier, international broadcasters. “The Bryk Retreat” consists of seven 30-minute episodes, which follows designer Danielle Bryk as she renovates the cherished family lake house amid family demands and tight timelines. The series has new broadcast deals with the U.S. specialty cable channel, Discovery, as well as Foxtel in Australia, Blackstar TV in South Africa, and True Visions in Thailand. 

The 60 hour-long episodes “See No Evil’s” Season 5, about how real crimes are solved with the help of surveillance cameras, featuring real footage and dramatic reconstructions, along with first-hand testimonies, was picked up by Discovery in UK and Italy, A+E Networks in Italy, Nine Network in Australia, A+E Networks in Asia, Foxtel in Australia, and ProSiebenSat.1 in Germany. The distributor has secured plenty of sales for its recently released factual series “Witches of Salem,” which consists of 4 6-minute episodes, in association with Talos Films. The four-part series, which tells the tale of history’s most terrifying real-life witch hunt, has been picked up by ViuTVsix (Hong Kong), SVT (Sweden), A+E Networks for its HISTORY channel in Germany, international broadcaster, Viasat World for Viasat History (Central & Eastern Europe, Baltics, Scandinavia, Russia, and CIS) and The Travel Channel in the United States.

Season 1 of live-action kids series, “Detention Adventure,” created by LoCo Motion Pictures & Broken Compass Films, which follows three nerdy friends who have to get in trouble so they can search the detention room for the hidden entrance to Alexander Graham Bell’s secret laboratory, has been picked up by NRK Super (Norway), HRT (Croatia), C More Entertainment (Sweden, Denmark, Finland) and ABC (Australia). The show “Rebel Without a Kitchen, by General Purpose Entertainment, is heading to U.S. digital network, Tastemade USA. The show features Chef Matt Basile, who creates dishes based on his eclectic culinary travel adventures. Additionally, in Canada, Season 3 of “Best Cake Wins,” a baking competition in which expert bakers create intricate birthday cakes for young kids with wild imaginations, is heading to specialty channel, Zeste in Quebec. 

UK’s sales include “Equator,” eight  60-minute episodes that explore life under the sun across regions in the southern hemisphere. The show was picked up by Sky, along with Seasons 1 and 2 of “Unboxed,” which sees celebrity designer Nikki Chu transform homeowners dated digs from drab to fab, sold to ITV. A+E Networks in UK and Ireland has acquired National Park Secrets and Legends, which takes viewers into the unexplored areas of some of North America’s largest landmarks, where horrific catastrophes, occult murders, and UFO phenomena occurred.

Meanwhile, Viajar in Spain, which forms part of The Walt Disney Company in Iberia, has secured both, “China Revealed,” a 3D expedition into a land of sublime landscapes and cultural sites that the Western world has never seen and “Over Australia,” which shows the exploration of the oldest continent on the planet, and showcases how diverse wildlife has adapted to a developing mosaic of habitats. “Cheating Hitler: Surviving the Holocaust,”  featuring the moving narrative of three Holocaust survivors who travel back to the killing sites and hiding places of their childhood for the first time in 75 years in search of clues to their past, has been sold to A+E Networks in UK & Ireland, Central/Eastern Europe, MENA, Scandinavia, Benelux, as well as A+E Networks for its History channel in Germany, ITI Neovision in Poland) and SVT in Sweden. The Swedish network has also picked up “The First World War: The People’s Story,” a three-part docu-series commissioned by BBC that draws on an archive of 200 interviews with the last survivors of the Great War, from the battlefields and the home front.

SVT in Sweden also licensed three originally commissioned Love Nature titles, including, season one of “Amazing Animal Friends” a look at unlikely animal friendships like a rhino and a lamb and an elephant who thinks she’s a buffalo, season 1 of  “Animals At Play,” which uncovers the fun secrets behind why animals play and “Gangs of Lemur Island,” which follows four warring troops of ring-tailed lemurs in the fast-changing, unique world of Madagascar.   In France, Canal+ has licensed “My Gay Dog and Other Animals” for its SVOD platform in France and French-speaking territories worldwide. The series explores why homosexual behavior is found throughout the animal kingdom, guided by behaviorists and scientists who offer explanations on evolutionary reasons why animals might choose same-sex partners. France-based channel MyZen TV has secured Seasons 1 & 2 of “Expat,” which provides an inside look at the highs and lows of living abroad. 

Radiotelevisione Svizzera (RSI) in Switzerland has picked up three episodes in Season 1 of “Art of Craft,” which explores the passion, authenticity and unusual skill of modern-day master craftsmen and artists, following their pursuit of perfection in the worlds of glass-blowing, embroidery, violin-making, and other intricate crafts. TV 2 in Denmark, TV 2 in Norway and RTL in the Netherlands have picked up the highly anticipated second season of “Prison,” which won Best Documentary Series at the Grierson Awards, the Royal Television Society Awards, and the Broadcast Awards and a 2019 BAFTA nomination for Best Factual Series. The second season shifts its focus from a men’s UK-based facility to HMP Foston Hall, a women’s prison, also located in the UK, along with highlights of the hardships incarcerated women face.