Mercury Secures Deals With Two Al Jazeera Channels for 30 Titles

29 September 2011
Clive Whittingham
© C21 Media 2011

Al Jazeera warms to Mercury docs

London-based distributor MercuryMedia has secured deals with two Al Jazeera channels for 30 of its factual titles.

The deal, with Al Jazeera Doc Channel and Al Jazeera Turkey, includes Lichen Films’ documentary One Thousand Pictures: RFK’s Last Journey that originally aired on HBO in the US and Channel 4 in the UK.

The 38-minute one-off uses archive footage and interviews to recount the journey of Bobby Kennedy’s body as it was transported by train from New York to Washington following his assassination in 1968.

Soka Afrika, a one-hour doc on player trafficking in the world of football, and the five-part jazz series Icons Among Us from Paradigm Studio are also included in the deal.

Mercury is set to launch a host of new documentaries at Mipcom next week.

Included on the company’s slate are three highly topical documentaries: The Flaw, from director David Sington, about the causes of the global financial crash; Under Fire: Journalists in Combat, on the work of journalists in warzones; and Article 12, an expose on the increasing levels of surveillance in society.

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