Nico Hofmann and Jan Mojto, two leading figures in the German TV industry, on Friday unveiled their upcoming slate for their new joint venture, announced earlier this year. Their company plans to make big-budget, high-end series out of Germany for the international market.
The first slate of projects includes several novel and non-fiction adaptations. They include: Tilman Lahme’s Die Manns – Geschichte einer Familie, a biography of the legendary Mann family, including noble prize winner Thomas Mann and brother Heinrich man, which is to produced as a six-part television series set in the 1920s and told through the eyes of the younger generation, particularly the kindred spirits and eldest siblings Klaus and Erika Mann.
The group plans to adapt European Book Prize winner Maxim Leo’s bestselling novel Wo wir zu Hause sind and his latest book Wir werden jung sein as limited series. The first is an autobiographical story of Leo’s Jewish-German diaspora family. The later a near-future novel about the cutting-edge science of human biological rejuvenation research and the quest for eternal youth.
Also on the slate is an adaptation of the upcoming novel Man lebt sein Leben nur einmal from ward-winning journalist Thomas Hüetlin, which will serve as the basis for a limited series on the life of Marlene Dietrich.
Former UFA CEO Hofmann and Beta Film CEO Mojto have been professional collaborators for some 30 years, producing such ground-breaking German series as The Tunnel, Generation War and The Tower. Working alongside them on their joint production venture is Jan Wünschmann, EVP for Co-Production and business affairs at Beta and managing director of Intaglio Films, a joint venture between Beta and German public broadcasting outfit ZDF Studios, which produced the big-budget sci-fi series The Swarm.
