Barbarians Rising Producer October Films Developing Football Doc-Series As World Cup Fever Hits Peaks
Ulrik Pedersen/CSM/REX/Shutterstock EXCLUSIVE: October Films, the UK and U.S. productio..
Ulrik Pedersen/CSM/REX/Shutterstock
EXCLUSIVE: October Films, the UK and U.S. production company best known for producing Historys Barbarians Rising, is taking advantage of football fever with a new six-part documentary series exploring the sport.
The company has partnered with Spanish production company Brutal Media to develop This Is Football (w/t).
The series will explore footballs impact on global culture and will try and understand how football has become the worlds biggest, and most unifying conversation. It will look at universal themes of the human experience from redemption, hope, love, fate, wonder, faith, through incredible stories turned up from every continent.
This Is Football is being filmed across the UK, Russia, which is hosting the 2018 World Cup, Argentina, Brazil, Israel, USA and China.
October Films, which is run by Executive Chairman Denman Rooke and MD Adam Bullmore, is not known for its sports programming but has produced a number of high-profile documentary series including Levison Woods Walking franchise Nat Geos Mygrations.
Meanwhile, Spains Brutal Media, which was set up in 2008, is best known for producing series including This Is Art for TV3 and Movistar and dramas such as We Shall Return for Televisió de Catalunya and Televisión Española.
A broadcaster for the project has not been revealed, but given the huge global popularity of this summers World Cup, which sees England take on Croatia and France play Belgium in the semi-finals, its not a bad time to be working on such a project.
It follows recently announced football projects including The Football Show, produced by Infinity Creative Media and Zig Zag Productions, which features the likes of Hernan Crespo and Jamie Carragher and is filmed across six cities.
“October Films and Brutal Media, two of the UK and Spains leading creators of high-end factual television, are co-producing a major 6 x 60 series which explores how the power of football inspires and unites more than five billion fans of all races, religions, languages and backgrounds around the world,” an October Films spokesman told Deadline.
