The Israeli writers and creators behind Allegiance and False Flag, and the writer and director of award-winning documentary The Green Prince, are teaming up with European production companies Beta Film, Wildside and Zeitsprung on German Moon, a new series inspired by the former Nazi scientists who engineered NASA’s first manned mission to the moon.
Green Prince director Nadav Schirman and veteran writers Ron Leshem and Amit Cohen are developing the series, which is set to begin shooting in 2019/2020. Beta will handle world sales on the project.
German Moon is set in Huntsville, Ala., in 1950, when the sleepy southern town is overwhelmed by a flood of new immigrants: 118 German families, members of the technical elite of the defeated Nazi regime, brought to the United States by the CIA to spearhead America’s space race.
When it comes to European drama series, Beta (Babylon Berlin) and Wildside (The Young Pope, My Brilliant Friend) are among the continent’s elite producers. Cologne-based Zeitsprung is best known for documentaries and based-on-real-life adaptations, including Side Effects and the current feature film Mack the Knife —Brecht’s Threepenny Film.
Schirman’s documentary The Green Prince, about a founding member of Palestinian group Hamas who became a spy for the Israelis, won the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014. He is currently writing and directing Gaddafi, a drama series based on the late Libyan dictator, which he co-created with Italian writer Roberto Saviano (Gomorrah).
Cohen and Leshem co-wrote NBC’s Allegiance and Israeli drama The Gordin Cell. Cohen also created and wrote Israeli hit False Flag and teen drama Euphoria, which HBO is adapting for the U.S., with Leshem as an executive producer.
