Month: September 2019

Ser­i­al Eyes grad­u­ate Den­nis Schanz realis­es his tele­vi­sion series idea SKYLINES through Net­flix

SKYLINES (c) Netflix

Den­nis Schanz has tak­en on the roles of head writer and pro­duc­er to realise his series idea SKYLINES with Net­flix. SKYLINES is the first project devel­oped with­in Ser­i­al Eyes that will be screened on the largest inter­net enter­tain­ment ser­vice.

The series is about a tal­ent­ed hip-hop pro­duc­er who lives in Frank­furt am Main and receives the offer of a life­time. It will run exclu­sive­ly and world­wide on Net­flix from 27 Sep­tem­ber 2019.

Den­nis Schanz devel­oped the idea for the series with­in the Writ­ers’ Room of Ser­i­al Eyes. He was sup­port­ed by var­i­ous lec­tur­ers (includ­ing US showrun­ner Frank Spot­nitz and dra­maturge Nico­la Lusuar­di) and by his men­tor and pro­duc­er Klaus Zim­mer­mann, and then fol­lowed up on the project. With Net­flix, Schanz – tak­ing on the posi­tions of head writer, pro­duc­er, and showrun­ner – final­ly found a part­ner with whom to realise this unusu­al project, which is set between the hip-hop and crim­i­nal worlds.

Den­nis Schanz also enlist­ed three of his Ser­i­al Eyes col­leagues to be on the writ­ers’ team: Oliv­er Karan, Kim Zim­mer­mann, and Arne Ahrens have con­tributed to scripts for the six-part SYKLINES sea­son. The DFFB is also delight­ed by the par­tic­i­pa­tion of oth­er DFFB alum­ni in the pro­duc­tion: Luis Singer (pro­duc­er at Stick­Up Film­pro­duk­tion) and Jonas Dorn­bach and David Keitsch (pro­duc­ers at Kom­plizen­film) are the lead pro­duc­ers of the series, and DFFB alu­munus Max Erlen­wein direct­ed episodes 1–3.

We are very excit­ed and keep our fin­gers crossed for a suc­cess­ful series start!

 

DFFB CELEBRATES SUCCESS AT THE FIRST STEPS AWARDS

The Ger­man Film and Tele­vi­sion Acad­e­my Berlin is delight­ed to announce that two DFFB stu­dents received awards at the 20th FIRST STEPS AWARDS, which were pre­sent­ed yes­ter­day evening on the stage of the The­ater des West­ens:

 

Author Jacob Haupt­mann received the FIRST STEPS SCREENPLAY PRIZE, which came with a €10,000 prize, for his screen­play ZEIT DER MONSTER. Oliv­er Ziegen­balg praised Hauptmann’s script in a pas­sion­ate speech on behalf of the jury, which also includ­ed Lau­ra Lack­mann, and Hei­de Schwo­chow: “In a fever­ish and fre­net­ic style, ZEIT DER MONSTER uses the exam­ple of an African infir­mary to tell the sto­ry of an entire nation slid­ing into the ter­ri­ble night­mare of war.”

 

Pro­duc­er Romana Janik received the NO FEAR AWARD for her work on the fea­ture film 1986 (direc­tor: Lothar Her­zog). The jury acclaimed Janik for her courage in tak­ing the risk to shoot a fea­ture film, detail­ing ille­gal trans­ports from the con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed Cher­nobyl zone, under chal­leng­ing con­di­tions in Belarus. The jury, con­sist­ing of Son­ja Heiss, Jochen Laube, Kat­ja Nicode­mus, Son­ja Rom and Kost­ja Ull­mann, con­clud­ed: “We would all like to shoot with this pro­duc­er!”

 

We warm­ly con­grat­u­late our two win­ners!

 

Pho­to: © Event­press /​ Har­ald Fuhr