Mercury sells docs to France, Israel

Adam Benzine
12 May 2009
© C21 Media 2009

UK-based documentary distributor MercuryMedia has finalised its first batch of post MipTV deals, selling titles into France, Spain and Israel.

The History Channel in Spain has picked up the Emmy Award-nominated Women Of Tibet: A Quiet Revolution, the second part of a three part series; as well as second world war documentary The Soviet Story and Mafia drama Empire State Building Murders.

Elsewhere, biopic Dominick Dunne: After The Party and the hard-hitting In Prison My Whole Life have been acquired by Planete Justice in France, while Freemasons documentary The Scottish Key has been picked up by France’s TF1 Histoire. Cold war documentary Stasi has gone to TV3 in Catalunya.

“Despite the fall in attendance, Mercury had a very successful market and a full schedule,” MercuryMedia’s head of sales Patricia Hickey told C21. “Doc buyers still have the slots to fill.

The distributor also notched up sales for two of its new miniseries, with the critically acclaimed Jazz series Icons Among Us and the BBC Scotland-commissioned Pride and Privilege being sold to DBS in Israel. DBS also took politically charged documentaries Incomplete World and H For Hunger, as well as Tigerlily Films’ Goth Cruise. Also in Israel, Noga’s Channel 8 has picked up Transgender documentary Identities.

Elsewhere, Middle Eastern broadcaster Al Jazeera acquired documentary Bilal, which recently won the prestigious Golden Trophy at the Al Jazeera Film Festival. The film, about a three-year-old boy living in the Slums of Calcutta with his blind parents, has also picked up the top award at five other festivals over the past couple of months.

For In-flight sales, British Airways acquired Runners High, a doc about high school children running the LA Marathon, while in Australia, Eagle Entertainment has picked up DVD rights for September 11 documentary Zero: An Investigation Into 9/11.

As previously reported by C21 at MipDoc, Mercury’s first sale of the market was to NHK Japan for Welcome To Hebron, a documentary about a 17-year-old Palestinian girl.