The Spiral

Hans Herbots’ five-part crime series The Spiral is nominated for this year’s International Digital Emmy Awards. Rewarding creative digital programming, the renowned television prizes will be presented during the Opening Night festivities of MIPTV, the leading international television market (Cannes, 8 – 11 April).

A total of 12 productions from 10 different countries is in the running for a Digital Emmy Award, The Spiral being part of the section Digital Program: Fiction.

The Flemish fiction TV series Clan and Salamander are selected for the prestigious International Festival of Audiovisual Programs (FIPA 22 – 27 January) in Biarritz, France. Parade’s End, a Flemish coproduction with BBC and HBO, and the interactive TV series The Spiral are also selected for competition.

Both Clan and Parade’s End will screen in official competition at the fest. Both TV series are in the running for no less than six FIPA d’Or awards. In Clan, the four sisters Goethals plot the murder of their brother-in-law, Jean-Claude. He is the husband of their fifth sister and a pain in the ass just asking to be liquidated. But while planning a murder is easy, committing it is another story...

Flemish director Hans Herbots has signed a deal to be represented by US talent agency The Gersh Agency. A number of US outfits had been courting Herbots since the success of his ambitious co-production TV series The Spiral, which recently aired simultaneously in eight European countries. Meanwhile the series has also been nominated twice for a prestigious Prix Europa and remake rights for the US market have been sold to Sony Television.

In the US, The Spiral’s tone of voice and narrative style were highly praised. After being approached by a number of talent agencies, and holding a number of meetings in LA, Herbots finally decided to sign with The Gersh Agency, where he joins a client list including the likes of Werner Herzog and Paul Schrader. The director will be assigned two agents – one for feature projects (Frank Wulinger) and another for TV projects (Sean Barclay). Fourth Floor’s Jeff Silver is Herbots’ manager in the US.

The premiere episodes of new Flemish TV series Clan, Deadline 14/10 and The Spiral together gathered an impressive total of 2.3 million viewers in Flanders. Never before have local broadcasters committed this strongly to original indigenous quality fiction. The increase in domestic TV production is a result of the new Media fund which also supported upcoming TV series such as Quiz Me Quick, Salamander and HBO/BBC’s Parade’s End.

Sunday evening 9 September saw a historic first for television in Flanders. No fewer than three original quality fiction series were counter-programmed by leading channels één and vtm: Clan, Deadline 14/10 and The Spiral. Preliminary results indicate that the three TV series attracted a total of 2,274,000 viewers. Combined with delayed viewing and a number of repeat airings, the final total number is estimated to pass 3 million viewers or half of the population of the Flanders region.

Broadcaster Arte has teamed up with the six northern European television channels that joined forces on producing the transmedia mystery The Spiral, Flemish public broadcasting network VRT being one of them. The Franco-German arts channel will diffuse the tv series in four supplementary territories.

The production of The Spiral, a five-part drama series, unites six northern European networks while the storyline follows an equally international group of artists who get entangled in a crime investigation after one of them mysteriously disappears during an art heist.