Beyond Rights expands slate with UK, Italian & Mexican producer deals

Undercut: Wooden Treasure

UK- and Australia-based distributor Beyond Rights has added more than 35 hours of factual content to its catalogue following deals with five new production company partners.

Beyond Rights was recently formed following the merger of Australia’s Beyond International and TCB Media Rights, whose former MD Kate Llewellyn-Jones was last week appointed to oversee the company.

Among its new acquisitions are two seasons (9 x 60-minutes) of non-English-language series Undercut: Wooden Treasure, from GiUMa Produzioni in Italy. Originally produced for D-Max, the series follows the work of Italian loggers in the aftermath of storm Vaia in 2018, which uprooted around 14 million trees in the country in winds of 120 mph.

Beyond has also done done a deal with Mexico- and Miami-based CIC Media for its 6 x 60-minutes series Race To Victory. The archive-driven history show, which was originally commissioned by A&E Networks UK for its recently rebranded Sky History channel, has already been sold to A+E Networks in the US and Spain, as well as Viasat. It explores the the unlikely alliance between the UK, US and the Soviet Union in the war against Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

Beyond has also taken UK-based indie Gobstopper’s 18 x 60-minute series Filthy House SOS (18 x 60-minutes). Produced for the UK’s 5Star channel, the series follows cleaners Jon and Brennan as they take on some of Britain’s filthiest homes.

Wonderhood’s one-off hour-long documentary Trump In Tweets has also been added to the books. Originally produced for BBC Three, the film explores the President of the United States’ fascination with social media and how it impacts his policies. Beyond says that the documentary has been picked up by BBC Nordics, with other offers pending.

Last but not least, Beyond has acquired The Unremembered, a one-off documentary from Uplands Television. Commissioned by Channel 4 in the UK, the film tells the story of the 100,000-plus African soldiers who died on their own continent serving Britain during the First World War, but were denied proper graves.

Claire Runham, who brokered the acquisition deals for Beyond, said: “The TV world has opened up in terms of language, driven by the popularity of non-English-speaking drama. Factual buyers want access to the best stories — and many of those stories, of course, are not told in English.

“We hope that Undercut will be the first in a new raft of brilliant factual series from around the world. In addition, with these new deals, we can bring some of the most important stories of our time — from Trump’s use of social media to Africa’s unremembered heroes — to international audiences.”