COMMISSIONERS AT NETFLIX


Lucy Leveugle Director, Non Fiction Originals, EMEA


Kate Townsend Vice President, Documentary Features


Jonny Taylor Director, Documentary Features


Reva Sharma Manager, Documentary Features


Adam Hawkins Director Documentary Series


Vendetta: Truth, Lies and the Mafia NETFLIX


Netflix declared a spend of £1bn in the UK in 2021, across 60 productions. Much of the work is in scripted, but it is increasingly investing in factual content. In the UK, it’s been growing its unscripted and documentary teams.


Netflix documentary needs the kind of narrative that can hook the viewer in and keep them with the unfolding drama through to the end. This would advise away from more issue-based or situational pitches.


Character and execution are equally vital. Documentary series Vendetta: Truth, Lies and the Mafia, from Nutopia, features the extraordinary central characters of a judge with a mission and her nemesis, a vocal anti-mafia campaigning TV journalist. Standard biography won’t cut it. Profile on its own is not enough; any subject needs to have classic dramatic tropes. Controversy is a big help. Raw’s documentary series Bad Sport intersects sport and crime, featuring some high profile characters, but also Shakespearian levels of betrayal and greed.


A unique visual approach is another way to think about documentary and series. Knickerbockerglory’s American


22 See the Televisual Factual Films at televisual.com


Murder: The Family Next Door is one example; the whole feature was created from archive and social media footage.


The priority is projects with scale, access and global resonance. That doesn’t mean that the subject has to be international, but - as with Italian-based Vendetta – it has to have resonance beyond the territory. And it doesn’t work to tie ideas to events; with a non-linear platform, content needs to have a long shelf life.


True crime is a definite area of interest. It doesn’t have to be murder. In 2021, doc series Heist revealed how ordinary people almost got away with extraordinary cons, This Is a Robbery examined a still- unsolved art theft, and Cocaine Cowboys: Kings of Miami chronicled the rise and fall of drug kingpins.


The Netflix audience is also interested in technology and there is a big interest in any documentary reflecting moral, ethical issues.


On the documentary front for 2022, there’s a clutch of documentaries around cons, scams and cautionary tales. Alongside a second series of Tiger King, there’s


a documentary feature from Minnow Films, Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King. Raw TV is behind The Tinder Swindler and documentary series The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman. Transistor Films is making I Am A Stalker, a follow-up to the Netflix/ A+E co-production I Am A Killer. Plus, there’s a docuseries based on the book Big Vape: The Incendiary Rise of Juul.


Natural history has been strong on the service and it has recently re-commissioned Plimsoll for another series of celebrity-narrated series Animal.


With factual entertainment there’s more room for different shapes of programming, both huge scale and smaller. There’s increasingly space for different tones – soft and warm shows, as well as edgy.


Reality and dating have both been strong for Netflix. LA real estate show Selling Sunset has been a hit and coming up is Roaring Twenties, with eight Texan twenty-somethings. The Fastest is its first Arabic


Nelesh Dhand Manager, Documentary Series


Benedict Kelly Manager, Unscripted Series


Daisy Lilley Manager Unscripted Series


unscripted series, which puts fast cars through their paces.


Netflix takes on dating include Love is Blind, Sexy Beasts from Lion and Too Hot to Handle from Talkback, and sibling dating show, Dated and Related, from Great Scott Media and Main Event.


Competition formats also feature, with baking format Nailed It! cited as a fresh take on baking. Upcoming is School of Chocolate and Lime Pictures is behind new dance competition format Dance Monsters which uses state-of-the-art vfx. Snowflake Mountain, from Naked, sees ‘kidults’ sent to bootcamp. Shot in the UK’s Lake District, it has a cash prize for the winner.


Too Hot to Handle


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