Leonine Studios Buys Into Doc Maker Gerbruder Beetz Filmproduktion – Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: Quick-growing European manufacturing group Leonine Studios has purchased into compatriot Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion, the corporate behind Netflix’s first German docuseries, we’ve discovered.

Munich-based Leonine has purchased 50% of Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion and 100% of Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion Lüneburg, each of that are a part of Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktiongruppe. An possibility to accumulate the opposite 50% of Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion is included within the transaction, which closed right this moment.

Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion is one in every of German-speaking Europe’s foremost documentary producers with credit for Netflix’s first German authentic docu-series, A Excellent Crime, the 2013 Academy Award-nominated Open Coronary heart and The Cleaners, which debuted at Sundance Worldwide Movie Pageant in 2018 and gained a number of awards.

It has made extra 250 productions productions and is quickly launching Reeperbahn — Particular Unit 65, a ARD Mediathek present supported by the German Movement Image Fund that was awarded greatest docu-series of the yr 2022 on the Berlin Collection Pageant. At Mipcom, one other new present, A Century of Intercourse Training, will likely be introduced to patrons.

Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion — which has bases in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne — is now a part of the Leonine Manufacturing division that additionally contains Hyperbole, i&u TV, Madame Zheng Manufacturing, Odeon Fiction, website positioning Leisure, W&B Tv and Wiedemann & Berg Movie.

It can stay impartial following the deal, with Christian and Reinhardt Beetz persevering with to guide the corporate as Managing Administrators. Leonine Studios CEO Fred Kogel, who oversees non-fiction manufacturing and acquisitions licensing, is becoming a member of the Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktionsgruppe administration group.

Georg Tschurtschenthaler, Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion’s long-serving senior producer and showrunner, turns into the producer’s Chief Artistic Officer. He’ll oversee the event slate new high-end documentaries and collection.

“With Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktionsgruppe, we’ve got strengthened our place within the documentary sector with probably the most high-profile manufacturing firm in Germany,” stated Kogel.

He added the acquisition “opens up a variety of alternatives” within the German native and worldwide doc markets. “We are going to spend money on our personal high-end IPs with worldwide potential and within the growth of authentic content material. Christian and Reinhardt Beetz are pioneers and recognized for his or her groundbreaking, high-quality productions, that are additionally internationally profitable and have gained quite a few prestigious awards.”

He known as the Christian and Reinhardt Beetz are “two of the most effective artistic minds along with their excellent group” and added that their technique “matches completely with Leonine’s premium content material ambitions.”

Christian and Reinhardt Beetz stated in an announcement: “The worldwide documentary movie within the prime section is going through nice challenges. The standard necessities for the productions have multiplied and the market has turn into extremely internationalized. World audiences anticipate first-class, high-quality documentaries. In an effort to proceed working from Germany for the worldwide market, a robust companion is crucial.

“As a part of Leonine Studios, we’ve got a mess of thrilling alternatives to understand nationwide and, above all, worldwide cooperations and co-productions. We’re specializing in additional increasing our slate of high-end documentaries with a world enchantment within the movie and collection sector, and intensifying our long-standing partnerships with broadcasters, streamers and distributors.”