MUNICH – Marking another win for Babylon Berlin, the biggest Asian TV festival in Shanghai has honoured the Roaring Twenties drama as Best Foreign Series with the renowned Magnolia Award. The 16-hour show beat highly prestigious US series such as David Lynch’s Twin Peaks and David Shore’s medical drama The Good Doctor.
The Shanghai TV Festival jury stated: “Babylon Berlin wins for its high production values, brilliant script, engaging characters, and thrilling story. It showed us a time in European history that still feels culturally and politically relevant.”
After sweeping five German Television Awards earlier this year, among them Best Drama Series, the Magnolia Award it is the next great success for the series by X Filme Creative Pool, ARD Degeto, Sky Germany and Beta Film.
Praised by international press, as “the most bingeable new drama since The Crown by Vogue and “fabulous and stunning” by The Guardian, Babylon Berlin had garnered high ratings all over Europe by being #1 among foreign-language series on Sky UK and #2 among the most successful series starts of all times on Sky Germany, only beaten by Game of Thrones.
The thrilling crime series by scriptwriter and director Tom Tykwer, Achim von Borries and Henk Handloegten recently continued its international roll-out and has been sold to the African subscription platform M-Net as well as to India’s channel Tata Sky. On a whole, Babylon Berlin has been acquired by over 90 territories, among them the US, Australia, Russia and Europe.
Babylon Berlin portrays the city of Berlin during the Roaring Twenties, a metropolis for those with talent and ambition, but a dead end for the impoverished masses striving for a better life. It is a time of organized crime and political extremism. The old militaristic elites have not yet abdicated, while an even more dreadful monster starts flexing its muscles.
The show follows Gereon Rath, a police officer from Cologne, investigating with his own agenda in the capital. Starring Volker Bruch (Generation War) and Liv Lisa Fries (The Wave). ARD as well as several linear broadcasters worldwide will present the show this fall.
