NETFLIX COMMISSIONS DRAMA KARGA SEVEN PICTURES’ “MIDNIGHT AT THE PERA PALACE”

Netflix announced its plans to commission the drama series “Midnight at the Pera Palace,” produced by Karga Seven Pictures Turkey at a press conference in Istanbul. The eight-episode Turkish language series has started production in multiple locations in Turkey. "At Netflix, we aspire to have best in class stories, across all genres. Therefore, we’re thrilled to diversify our slate of Turkish originals with such an exciting period adventure drama,”  Pelin Distas, Netflix’s Director of Original Content for Turkey, said.

“Midnight at the Pera Palace” is an adaptation of the award-winning non-fiction book of the same name written by Charles King and is created for television by Emre Sahin, Kelly McPherson, and Sam Anzel, written by Elif Usman, and directed by Emre Sahin. The series is executive produced by Sarah Wetherbee, Kelly McPherson, and Emre Sahin for Karga Seven Pictures. “As a lover of history and Istanbul, this project is a dream come true,”  Emre Sahin, Founding Partner of Karga Seven Pictures, and the creator and director of the series said. “The book did such a great job of telling the history of Turkey through the eyes of the hotel.”

“Midnight at the Pera Palace” tells the story of a young journalist called Esra, and her encounter with the legendary Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul. When Esra is assigned to write a piece about the hotel, she accidentally discovers that one of the historic rooms is a portal to the year 1919. Thrust into the past, she lands in the middle of a political conspiracy against the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Together with Ahmet, the quirky hotel manager, Esra must protect the course of history and the future of Turkey. 

Karga Seven Pictures’ US division produces an array of scripted and unscripted projects for all major networks, including recent commissions “Bin Laden’s Hard Drive” for NatGeo, “Believers”, “Buried Worlds with Don Wildman” and “Mission Declassified” for Travel Channel, and “Unexplained and Unexplored” for Discovery and Science Channel.