International Broadcasters Land ‘The Day We Walked on the Moon’ Documentary

By Stewart Clarke

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – A raft of international broadcasters have acquired “The Day We Walked on the Moon.” The upcoming moon landings documentary special was produced by Scotland-based indie Finestripe for in the U.K. and the Smithsonian Channel in the U.S.

It is distributed by Cineflix Rights, which has sold it to Seven Network in Australia and Kiwi pubcaster TVNZ, as well as NHK in Japan.

In Europe, it has been picked up by broadcasters including DR in Denmark, NRK in Norway, and Nelonen in Finland. Mediaset’s Focus channel in Italy and RTVE in Spain have also taken the documentary. Pan-territory buyers include AMC, which has it for Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and Discovery, which has it for its networks in Asia.

The one-off documentary commemorates the 50th anniversary of the moon landings. It has interviews with figures in the Apollo 11 mission, including astronaut Michael Collins and flight director Gene Kranz. Professor Brian Cox and key Apollo astronauts Frank Borman and Charlie Duke also feature.

In the wake of the deals for “The Day We Walked on the Moon,” Finestripe and Cineflix have struck a distribution deal. It gives Cineflix a first look at the producer’s projects for the next two years.

Richard Life, head of acquisitions, , did the deal. “I’m thrilled to be expanding our relationship with the incredibly talented team at Finestripe, whose prowess at producing internationally successful, high-quality content is demonstrated through the latest sales of ‘The Day We Walked on the Moon,’” he said.

“We’ve been delighted with the way the Cineflix Rights team has got behind our existing programs – achieving a high volume of pre-sales enabling us to deliver the vision we had for the documentaries, as well as the overall volume of sales,” added Sue Summers, joint MD of Finestripe.