Announced today in Cannes at an official signing ceremony with the city’s Mayor David Lisnard, Cannes Confidential is a major coup for the Patrick Nebout-Beta Films’ joint venture Dramacorp. The production company has secured exclusive use of the trademark-protected name Cannes for its title, and will be the first English-language procedural set on the Riviera since the Roger Moore-Tony Curtis’ iconic 1970s series The Persuaders.

The 10x45’ series penned by UK-based Christ Murray (Doctors, Van der Valk) is a blue sky procedural, which follows an idealistic and ambitious female cop and a Canadian ex con-man, on the run both from the police and the mob. In each closed-end episode, we follow the pair who investigate and solve a murder case, while the long arc focuses on the female detective’s quest to find the criminals who framed her father, a local-hero cop who was jailed for a murder he didn’t commit.

Murray said” The opportunity to work on a series that combines crime and humour, that is both heart-warming and heart-stopping, all set against the backdrop of Cannes and the French Riviera is massively exciting.

Dramacorp’s other brand new English-language drama Rome is created by Henrik Jansson-Schweizer and Morgan Jensen who collaborated on the successful crime show Thicker than Water and the documentary Superswede.

The 8x45’ supernatural thriller set in Europe in the mid 70s, is inspired by the classic films Don’t Look Now and The Omen. An unwed single Irish mother is faced with the ordeal that her teenage daughter might be possessed by demons. Despite her disbelief, she has to accept that there is something seriously wrong with her daughter, and decides to go to Rome to save her daughter’s life by using the so-called Roman Ritual. At the same time, a private eye is investigating the disappearance of a teenage girl within the Vatican premises in Rome. These two cases will intertwine and lead to a disturbing truth that will shake the foundations of the Catholic Church and the Vatican. 

Jansson-Schweizer who recently joined Dramacorp as Creative Director/Executive producer told nordicfilmandtvnews.com: “It’s a great emotional story about parenthood, how far a mother is prepared to go to save her daughter, but there are also social comments on what’s going on today in the world. Thematically we will explore the thin line between faith and humanity, religion and science, and what power does to mankind. “

Nebout says he is looking for co-producers in Ireland and in Italy for the series that will take “the Scandinavian creative craftsmanship beyond the Nordics.”

The Dramacorp partners are pitching the project at MIPTV in Cannes this week, and hope to start production in the summer 2020. “It’s fresh from the oven, but Rome would be an ideal original show for major cable TV stations or global streamers,” notes Nebout.

Dramacorp’s other English language series announced earlier are the survival thriller The Head, co-produced with Spain’s Mediapro, to be shot in Spain and in Iceland from this summer, the anticipation series Rare, co-produced with Canada’s Bron Studios and Paris-based Isolani Pictures.

Swedish-language projects include:

  • Jakob Oftebro’s vehicle Agent Hamilton, produced by Dramacorp/Pampas for C More/TV4. Seasoned director Erik Leijonborg starts filming this month. 
  • Viaplay’s short format supernatural series Crypted scheduled to start filming this summer.