15 October 2018
Welsh broadcaster S4C will mark a year of drama and factual co-production success at this year's MIPCOM.
2018 has been a memorable year for the Welsh language public service broadcaster with three dramas proving big critical and commercial hits: Bang (Joio and Artists Studio), a crime drama which was nominated for a Writers' Guild Award; Un Bore Mercher/Keeping Faith (Vox Pictures), an original S4C/BBC Wales drama series starring Eve Myles, which was later shown on BBC One across the United Kingdom and has broken iPlayer viewing records; and Craith/Hidden (Severn Screen), a bilingual psychological crime thriller shown by S4C and BBC Wales, which has been well received across the UK.
All three dramas will return for a second series in 2019.
In addition, the rights to broadcast another original S4C drama, Byw Celwydd/Living a Lie (Tarian) in America and Canada have been bought by American public broadcaster, MHz Networks.
Meanwhile, two much-anticipated factual series will be broadcast by the channel during late 2018 and early 2019.
Y Wal/The Wall/An Balla (Rondo Media) is a timely six-part series examining the countries and communities separated by walls including Israel and the West Bank, Korea and Donald Trump's infamous wall to divide the United States of America and Mexico. The series is a co-production between S4C, from Wales, JTV from South Korea and Irish broadcaster TG4 with support from the KCA Korea and the Welsh Government. The series, narrated by 2018 Emmy Award-winning actor Matthew Rhys, is distributed worldwide by Cineflix and has been highlighted by realscreen as one of its Hot Picks. Y Wal will be broadcast from November 2018.
The second, Llanw/Tide (Cwmni Da/Mac TV), is a series which delves into the fractious relationship between humanity and the coastline in different parts of the world. The series has attracted support from S4C, TG4, BBC ALBA, BBC Northern Ireland, while, LIC, China's largest independent producer is also on board. Llanw will be broadcast from April 2019.
To celebrate the success and to discuss the channel's plans for the coming twelve months, S4C will be holding a reception at the Grand Hotel in Cannes, during MIPCOM.
Amanda Rees, S4C Creative Content Director said:" This event is a great opportunity not only to celebrate what has already been achieved but also to share our thougts on where we go from here. Our recent success has provided us with a brilliant platform from which to launch the next phase of a collaborative, international, drama strategy which promises to brings the world to Wales and Wales to the world"
Llion Iwan, S4C Head of Content Distribution, said: "This has been the best year of success in terms of both factual and drama co-productions for S4C and we'll be looking to build on that over the next 12 months."
