Submarine’s Femke Wolting gives the lowdown on int’l copro The Kollective
A team of citizen journalists explore a global conspiracy in The Kollective. Executive producer Femke Wolting tells DQ how it was inspired by a documentary and outlines the international coalition behind the series.
An Amsterdam-based production company with an eye on the international market, Submarine is responsible for scripted projects such as thriller Safe Harbour and genre-bending animated series Undone.
It’s currently in production on Netflix series Toos, a factual drama set in the 1980s that is based on the 1982 kidnapping of Toos van der Valk, the wife of the largest independent hotel chain in the Benelux region. The company is also working with director Kevin Macdonald and screenwriter David Harrower (Lockerbie) on a spy thriller about George Blake, one of the most notorious double agents of the Cold War.
“One strong focus is definitely on English-language drama and international shows not always set in the UK or the US,” Submarine founder and co-CEO Femke Wolting tells DQ. “We like series and films that reflect contemporary themes or issues. We are also very interested in series that are visually, creatively or technically exciting and different. Because we have an in-house animation and FX studio, we like to incorporate those into some of our scripted productions.” Undone, for example, was filmed as a live-action project before it was animated using a technique called rotoscoping.
On its latest series, The Kollective, the team at Submarine faced the creative challenge of how to make the work of a journalism collective visually interesting, as its members are not always in the same place.
The answer was to treat the internet as a shared space where they could come together, with a visual representation of the research they do together appearing on screen to “bring the real and the virtual worlds together in one,” Wolting says. “Because for them, for the characters, they move in and out of that [space]. For them, it’s really all one thing, so we try to represent that in the series as well.”
Inspired by true events, The Kollective follows a group of intrepid citizen journalists who, after a sudden tragedy, find themselves sucked into a globe-spanning web of government lies and corruption. Through a dangerous international investigation, the group exposes the nefarious activities of rogue governments and discovers the human cost of keeping the truth alive.
The six-parter’s ensemble cast includes Natascha McElhone, Celine Buckens, Felix Mayr, Gregg Sulkin, Grégory Montel, Karel Roden, Cassiopée Mayance, Martha Canga Antonio, Ralph Amoussou and Gijs Blom. Written by Leonardo Fasoli and Maddalena Ravagli, it is directed by Assaf Bernstein and Randa Chahoud. The creative team also boasts writer Ed Hemming, DOPs Robrecht Heyvaert and Lennert Hillige, and Alexei Tylevich, who designed The Kollective’s on-screen investigations.
The origins of the series can be found in Submarine-produced 2018 documentary Bellingcat, which explores the world of the titular group of citizen investigative journalists breaking stories in an era of fake news and alternative facts.
“While we were filming, I realised the subject of citizen journalism is a really fascinating world,” Wolting says. “These journalists investigate cases using open-source data from the internet, Google Earth but also social media. I loved how it shows how you as an individual can make a difference. Especially in a time that sometimes feels quite bleak, it’s a story that shows how young people are fighting back against fake news and propaganda. So it felt like a world that was relevant and that could also be an exciting international thriller.”
Before moving into film, the exec studied journalism and knew how “super relevant and urgent” the subject of the Bellingcat doc was. But she also recognised that a scripted drama would need to consider a fictional story rather than one based on the real group.
“Bellingcat and most of these other groups, their work is online. They are people working on their computer, investigating, and that doesn’t make a really exciting TV series,” she says. “So when Leonardo Fasoli came on board, he also loved the subject but we all felt it was essential that we made it a series about a fictional group, where the members go out into the real world, just to make it more dramatic and to work as a TV series.”
It also proved to be a challenge to create a “timeless or still current” story that could stay away from real headlines while being developed several years before it would land on screen. The resulting series opens in the aftermath of a devastating plane crash in the Democratic Republic of Congo that kills everyone on board, including a British journalist who had been investigating the involvement of Russian mercenaries in the region’s valuable coltan mining trade.
When another journalist is murdered, the Kollective’s quest for truth becomes personal, leading them to unravel a major conspiracy that takes them from the streets of Kinshasa to the frozen wilderness of Siberia.
“We had done a lot of research into the coltan mining in Africa, and we felt that those were very interesting worlds to investigate,” Wolting says. “Basically, it’s about how Russia was investing or interfering in coltan mining in Africa for the minerals [needed for] mobile phones, because the coltan is used for chips in computers and mobile phones, which at the time when we started was not a very well-known story. Then over time, it became a much bigger conversation, and it’s now just a much more well-known issue.”
She continues: “The themes of the importance of an independent press, to hold power to account, and the price that must be paid to keep democracy and the truth alive are even more relevant today. Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for the world, I would say it’s more urgent and relevant than it was even a few years ago. These themes and issues are not going to go away anytime soon. Then it was about finding a story that felt relevant and brought the Kollective together and out into the real world to investigate.”
Mirroring its international collaboration on screen, The Kollective was commissioned by the European Alliance of public broadcasters – Rai in Italy, ZDF in Germany and France Télévisions. Hulu in the US then picked up the series and launched it last year, while it recently debuted on ZDF. It will roll out in Italy and France soon, with A+E Networks handling distribution.
“We had the Alliance as the financiers and we shot in Kenya, Hungary, London, Antwerp and Amsterdam,” Wolting says. “The cast was, of course, international, between the US, the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, of course, and the Kenyan crew and cast, so that was really wonderful. We did all the visual effects at Submarine. Then a big part of the film crew was a mix of Dutch, Belgian and Hungarian. It was actually wonderful. It was great to work in such an international team.”
Filming in Kenya involved capturing numerous shots following characters through busy streets, as well as a big chase scene. Shots were also completed in a coltan mine, with crew from Hungary, Belgium and the Netherlands brought to the East African country to complement the local crew. “It was quite a challenge to do all that with an international group of people. Some people got sick; all the actors got sick a little bit. So it was definitely exciting and challenging at times,” Wolting says.
The exec believes good infrastructure is key to a successful coproduction, as are banks supporting cashflows from five different countries, understanding the tax implications and different regulations in each country, and working with actors in each location. “There’s just a lot to think about,” she says, “and then coproducing between a couple of broadcasters, a US streamer and a distributor is also about just navigating the creative, working with different broadcasters. The Alliance was great. [They weren’t all giving] different directions, so that was really good. But still, you’re talking with different parties at the same time – that takes some navigating.”
Wolting has also learned that this “hybrid nature” of production – between live action and animated visualisations – significantly affects the way you shoot. “Our background of doing series like Undone and these hybrid productions really helped, because you need to design it from the start before the shoot, not completely like animation but in terms of pre-vis, composing the shots, thinking how that will merge with the live-action shots in a natural way,” she says. “We had to treat that as an integral part of the production. That’s why it was so great that we could do that in-house, [as it gave us] the opportunity to experiment and try out new things.”
With outlines for a second season already in place (nothing is confirmed yet), Wolting adds that making a series relating to current affairs has to work first of all as a thrilling and engaging watch.
“But drama series allow you to connect with people and themes in a different way, to have a deeper understanding of people and the things they go through,” she says. “Besides just wanting to make a great series, I love to shine a light on themes and issues in the real world; to have people think about them and understand them in a different way. I would love that as well with this series.”
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The Newsroom: A cable news team decides to pursue fact-driven reporting over ratings, putting them into direct conflict with corporate interests, partisan politics and the 24-hour outrage economy.
Mr Robot: A brilliant but unstable hacker joins an underground collective plotting to wipe out global consumer debt, triggering corporate counter-attacks, government crackdowns and propaganda wars.
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tagged in: A+E Networks, European Alliance, Femke Wolting, France Télévisions, Hulu, Rai, Submarine, The Kollective, ZDF