Ken Burns cancer series finds buyers

Four channels have taken on a PBS documentary series from filmmaker Ken Burns about cancer.

PBS International has presold Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies to Globosat in Brazil, DirecTV in Latin America, YLE in Finland and TVI in Portugal.

Billed as “the comprehensive story of cancer”, the doc series is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning book from Siddhartha Mukherjee. It covers the earliest documented appearances of the disease thousands of years ago on Egyptian scrolls and follows this through to the 20^th century battle to cure and control it.

“This new documentary series beautifully illustrates a very important story, and in a way that only PBS can do,” says Tom Koch, VP, PBS International.

“Siddhartha Mukherjee’s book has been translated into more than nine languages and continues to dominate best seller lists all over the world, reinforcing the fact that cancer has no geographical boundaries. We are thrilled to bring such an important documentary series to the marketplace.”

PBS will be preselling the property in Cannes at MIPTV and MIPDoc alongside Frontline’s The Trouble with Chicken and American Terrorist. Other feature titles in the catalogue of PBS’s global sales arm include Ebola: Death in a Village and Faith in the Big House.