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“This series is a blazing fireball that could topple our democracy." – the Guardian ****
[October 17, 2022/New York]: Peacock has today released the official first look trailer for ONCE UPON A TIME IN LONDONGRAD directed by Oscar® nominated and Emmy® winning filmmaker Jed Rothstein (WeWork, The China Hustle, Killing In The Name). Told over six bingeable, half-hour episodes, the series will debut on Peacock on November 15th 2022.
BuzzFeed News investigative reporter Heidi Blake receives a tip on the death of a multi-millionaire property tycoon, leading her to uncover a web of death that entangles Russian oligarchs, 10 Downing Street, and Washington, D.C. Set across Vladimir Putin’s two decades in power, ONCE UPON A TIME IN LONDONGRAD charts how the UK became reliant on Russian money and missed opportunities to contain the Kremlin.
The timely series, inspired by the explosive investigation by BuzzFeed News, explores fourteen mysterious deaths in the UK with alleged connections to Russia, delving into the hidden underworld of Russian exiles in London to link some of the most internationally significant cases in living memory — including the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, the suspicious death of oligarch Boris Berezovsky, and the attempted assassination of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal. ONCE UPON A TIME IN LONDONGRAD is both a cautionary tale and an origin story of Russia’s path to eventually invading Ukraine.
The six-part series is produced by Oscar® and Emmy® winning production company Rise Films, in association with Universal International Studios, a division of Universal Studio Group, BuzzFeed Studios, and Concordia Studio.
Teddy Leifer serves as Executive Producer and Guy Horlock as Series Producer for Rise Films. Co-Executive Producers for BuzzFeed Studios are Richard Alan Reid and Karolina Waclawiak and Co-Executive Producers for Concordia Studio are Nicole Stott and Jonathan Silberberg. The series recently launched in the UK on Sky Documentaries and NOW to huge acclaim and is distributed internationally by NBCUniversal Global Distribution.
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Press Contacts
BuzzFeed, Inc.: pr@buzzfeed.com
Peacock: alex.martinetti@nbcuni.com
About Peacock
Peacock is NBCUniversal’s streaming service. Peacock delivers a world-class slate of exclusive originals, on-demand libraries of hit TV shows, plus critically acclaimed films from the vaults of Universal Pictures, Focus Features, DreamWorks Animation, Illumination, and Hollywood’s biggest studios. In addition, Peacock taps into NBCUniversal’s unmatched ability to deliver a broad range of compelling topical content across news, sports, late-night, Spanish-language, and reality. NBCUniversal is a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation.
About Rise Films
Rise Films is an Oscar® and Emmy® winning production company, producing films and television programmes for global audiences. Its productions include The Invisible War (Oscar® nominee and Emmy® winner), The Interrupters (Emmy® winner), Icarus (Oscar® winner), Knuckle (Sundance world premiere), Dreamcatcher (Sundance winner), We Are Together (Tribeca winner), Rough Aunties (Sundance winner), The Human Factor (Telluride world premiere), Mayor (Emmy® winner) and The Art of Political Murder (executive produced by George Clooney).
Roman comedy, Plebs, became ITV2's highest rating comedy ever. The show has run for five seasons and won multiple awards including a Broadcast Award, a Royal Television Award, and received three BAFTA nominations. The series will end with a feature length finale, which is currently in production.
Its latest feature, All That Breathes, directed by Shaunak Sen, is the only film ever to have won both the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and Best Documentary at the Cannes Film Festival - where the film premiered in 2022.
Other recent productions include George Carlin’s American Dream, a two-parter for HBO directed by Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio, which won the 2022 Emmy® for Outstanding Documentary.
About Universal International Studios
Universal International Studios, a division of Universal Studio Group, delivers award-winning content to millions across the globe. Based in London, the business’ in-house production companies include Carnival Films, creator of worldwide phenomenon “Downton Abbey,” hit series “Belgravia” and Netflix drama “The Last Kingdom”; Monkey, producer of BAFTA-winning “Made in Chelsea,” ITV hits “The Real Housewives of Cheshire” and “Jersey, UK,” “Celebrity Karaoke Club” and “Don’t Hate the Playaz;”; Australian-based Matchbox Pictures, producer of critically acclaimed series “The Real Housewives of Melbourne”, “Safe Harbour,” “Stateless” and “Clickbait,” which debuted at #1 worldwide on Netflix and upcoming drama “Things I Know To Be True”; Working Title Television, producer of “Tales of the City,” “The Luminaries,” “We Are Lady Parts” and “Everything I Know About Love”; and Heyday Television, producer of award-winning series “The Long Song,” “The Capture” and “Clickbait,” plus the upcoming adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s “Apples Never Fall.” Universal International Studios also backs Tony Ayres Productions (TAP), the company also behind “Clickbait” and anthology series “Fires”; and owns an equity stake in Lark Productions (“The Glass Hotel,” “Fortunate Son”) in Canada. The studio also houses a London and LA-based scripted unit that develops and produces original series such as the Emmy-nominated television adaptation “Hanna” and BBC family adventure drama “Dodger.” The division comprises a global formats group and partners with third-party production companies, broadcasters, networks and platforms to produce hit shows such as “Transplant” (Sphere Media/CTV/NBC), “Pretty Hard Cases” (Cameron Pictures/CBC/IMDb TV) and acclaimed cyber cyber-thriller “The Undeclared War” (Playground Entertainment/Channel 4/Peacock) from seven-time BAFTA winner Peter Kosminsky.
About BuzzFeed, Inc.
BuzzFeed, Inc. is home to the best of the internet. Across food, news, pop culture and commerce, our brands drive conversation and inspire what audiences watch, read, buy, and obsess over next. Born on the internet in 2006, BuzzFeed, Inc. is committed to making it better: providing trusted, quality, brand-safe news and entertainment to hundreds of millions of people; making content on the internet more inclusive, empathetic, and creative; and inspiring our audience to live better lives.
About Concordia
Concordia Studio’s recently completed nonfiction titles include: 2022 Academy Award, BAFTA and Grammy-winning SUMMER OF SOUL (directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson) winner of multiple international accolades including 2022 Independent Spirit and Critics Choice Awards, distributed by Searchlight Pictures and Hulu; Robert Greene’s 2022 Academy-shortlisted and Emmy-nominated PROCESSION, acquired by Netflix at the 2021 Telluride Film Festival; HOMEROOM (Peter Nicks) winner of the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award for U.S. Documentary and is distributed by Hulu; AT THE READY (Maisie Crow) released by Gravitas Ventures; Emelie Mahdavian’s BITTERBRUSH released by Magnolia Pictures, and the true crime series ONCE UPON A TIME IN LONDONGRAD released June 2022 by Sky Documentaries/Now.
Other nonfiction titles include: 2021 Academy Award-nominated and Peabody Award-winning TIME (Garrett Bradley), which won the Sundance Directing Award for U.S. Documentary and is distributed by Amazon Studios; plus Emmy Award-winning and Sundance U.S. Grand Jury-winning BOYS STATE (Jesse Moss & Amanda McBaine) which is distributed by Apple TV+ and A24; 2022 Peabody-winning and Emmy-nominated A THOUSAND CUTS (Ramona S. Diaz) which is distributed by Frontline (PBS), and BLOODY NOSE, EMPTY POCKETS (Bill Ross & Turner Ross) which screened at the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival and was released by Utopia. Other recent work includes INSIDE BILL’S BRAIN: DECODING BILL GATES (Davis Guggenheim) for Netflix, Sundance-premiered WHERE’S MY ROY COHN? (Matt Tyrnauer) for Sony Pictures Classics, Sundance-premiered BISBEE ’17 (Robert Greene), Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning THE PRICE OF FREE (Derek Doneen) for YouTube Premium and FROM HERE TO HOME, a series of shorts with the New York Times Op-Docs including Laura Nix’s Oscar-nominated WALK RUN CHA-CHA. Production is currently underway on the hybrid documentary film STILL for Apple TV+ directed by Davis Guggenheim and produced with unprecedented access to Michael J. Fox and the Fox family.