MIPTV: Netflix Takes Israeli School Shooting Series ‘Blackspace’ 

Netflix has acquired Blackspace, a new Israeli thriller series set during a high-school shooting, for most of the world. 

The eight-part series, written by Anat Gafni and Sahar Shavit and directed by Ofir Lobel, follows the police investigation into a massacre of four students at an Israeli high school carried out by anonymous masked figures. Key to the investigation is an app, Blackspace, that the school’s pupils use to communicate with one another, sharing their secrets out of view of their parents and the adult world. 

Chaim Sharir and Mosh Danon of Israel’s Drama Team produced Blackspace together with Pascal Breton and Lionel Uzan of Federation Entertainment for Israeli channel Reshet 13. The series has already been greenlit for a second season. 

In addition to the Netflix deal, Federation, which holds worldwide rights to Blackspace, also sold the series to RTL in Germany, to NPO for the Netherlands, and to an unnamed streaming service for Latin America. 

In a separate international TV deal, announced earlier this week, Banijay Rights sold multiple territories for its new crime drama Viewpoint. ABC in Australia, public broadcasters SVT (Sweden), YLE (Finland), NRK (Norway), and DR (Denmark) picked up the five-part crime series, which follows a tense police surveillance investigation into a tight-knit Manchester community.

Viewpoint was produced by Tiger Aspect in association with Unstoppable Film and Television based on an idea by Fleabag and Killing Eve director Harry Bradbeer, and co-created and written by Ed Whitmore (Safe House, Manhunt). Ashley Way directed. The series has its U.K. premiere on ITV on April 26.