Off the Fence/Sagafilm two-parter first foreign commission to air on Terra X and also add two new titles to OTF, ZDF and ARTE’s Wild… collection.

Off The Fence (OTF) has announced that ZDF has commissioned Iceland From Above (working title), the latest travel and adventure documentary from OTF Studios and award-winning Icelandic production company Sagafilm. The documentary, which is currently in production, will air in the third quarter of 2025 on ARTE, before its official launch on ZDF’s Terra X strand.

OTF has also announced two new documentary series in its Wild… collection, again to be co-produced by OTF, its parent company ZDF Studios and ARTE. The two new documentaries — Wild Medics and Wild: Senses — follow Wild Talk (5 x 50 mins), which was unveiled in July. 

The documentary has been produced on location in Iceland for its prestigious Terra X strand, which produces around 50 premium history, nature, archaeology and science documentaries a year. The two-part documentary will showcase the Land of Fire and Ice as it has never been seen before — from high above its dramatic topography, which ranges from glittering glaciers, blue lagoons and steaming geysers to towering waterfalls, lunar landscapes and some of the world’s angriest and most active volcanoes. But Iceland is more than Volcanic amusement park: it is also home to a hardy and intrepid people, who choose to share a corner of the world with nature at her most unpredictable and extreme. 

Stefanie Fischer, OTF’s managing director, distribution, said: “Terra X is not only a byword for quality factual programming, but it’s also the showcase for Germany’s finest documentaries. As a non-domestic producer given the greenlight for a coveted Terra X slot, it is a major accomplishment and a real tribute to Sagafilms’ filmmaking excellence. Of course, we should also thank Iceland for its help in securing this milestone commission — if ever a country was created to be filmed from above, it’s the stunning, and stunningly varied, Land of Ice and Fire.” 

The two new Wild… titles will be produced by the same creative team behind Wild Talk, which explores the rapidly evolving science of animal communication. Wild Medics again listens to animals — in this case, to discover what they can teach us about the natural remedies and techniques they use to alleviate pain and suffering. At a time when antimicrobial resistance is seen as the single biggest threat to global health, the documentary asks whether the medical wisdom of animals could help humans to find new cures for infections like malaria, perhaps even cancer. Each episode focuses on a specific medical issue — wounds and parasites, getting high, fertility, aches and pains, energy boosters, and depression and anxiety — to create a complete casebook of natural pharmacology. 

Wild: Senses, meanwhile, takes viewers on a vivid sensory journey into the mysterious world of animal perception. Each of the five episodes focuses on one key sense of perception, drawing on next-generation technology, the latest research and immersive graphics to explain how creatures see, hear, touch, taste and feel the world around them. How can a bald eagle spot a rabbit from three miles away? How do elephants use their feet to communicate over vast distances? And why can’t dolphins smell, but can recognise friends and family through taste? These are just some of the intriguing questions that the series will set out to answer.  

Wild Medics and Wild: Senses are executive produced by Debbie Hinnigan and Andrew Zikking for OTF, Petra Boden for ARTE, and Nikolas Hülbusch and Ralf Rückauer for ZDF Studios. The series producer is BAFTA-winning filmmaker Ben Holder.

ZDF Studios’ Off the Fence, the company behind Netflix’s BAFTA and Oscar-winning doc My Octopus Teacher, has acquired the worldwide rights (excluding North America and Latin America) to We Are Guardians. Executive produced by Appian Way Productions and produced by Highly Flammable, the documentary is the feature debut of directors Edivan Guajajara, co-founder of Mídia Indígena, the leading Indigenous-led investigative journalism collective in Brazil, and environmental filmmakers, Chelsea Greene and Rob Grobman.

Winner of the Cinema for Peace Green Film Award, the Jackson Wild Impact Award, the Best Documentary Award at Raindance Film Festival, and the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Mostra São Paulo International Film Festival, We Are Guardians tells an urgent story set in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest, where Indigenous forest guardians stand at the frontlines of the fight to protect their ancestral lands from relentless invasions and deforestation. As more and more people illegally invade their lands each year, devastating centuries-old forests for resources and fast profits, these small groups of guardians risk everything to protect their forest and way of life.

Ahead of We Are Guardians’ release, the team from OTF will kick off sales at international content market MIPCOM this October in Cannes.

“We are so excited to partner with Off The Fence on this next phase of We Are Guardians. We look forward to amplifying the urgent message of this documentary and the crucial role indigenous peoples play in preserving our communities’ biodiversity. Their environmental stewardship is so important for our collective future,” notes Highly Flammable producer, Fisher Stevens.

“’We are Guardians' is a film about extraordinary people, who are passionately fighting for their home. A home which the entire world is reliant upon being protected. The team behind the film have created a beautiful, expertly crafted, intimate and profoundly powerful film and we expect a lot of interest at MIPCOM.” Says Loren Baxter, Head of Acquisitions and Co-Productions at Off the Fence.

A veteran producer, Fisher Stevens came to We Are Guardians following work on the Oscar-winning conservation documentary, The Cove, and after having collaborated with Appian Way on several other documentaries, including And We Go Green and Before the Flood.

Executive producers of We Are Guardians include tribal members of the Guajajara people and Mídia Indígena founders Erisvan Bone Guajajara, Flay Guajajara, and co-director Edivan Guajajara, along with Leonardo DiCaprio, Phillip Watson, Jennifer Davisson, Academy Award winner Bruce Cohen, Christopher Gebhardt, Randy Gebhardt, Rob Grobman, Iz Web, Luiza Krapels, Marco Krapels. Co-executive producers are Brigit Grimm, Michael Grimm, Heather Conforto Beatty, and Scott Beatty. Production companies are Mídia Indígena, One Forest, Highly Flammable, Random Good, and Appian Way.

Alongside the film, the We Are Guardians team has created a robust impact campaign bringing tremendous support to the Indigenous forest guardians and kickstarting reforestation and agroforestry projects in Indigenous territories along the eastern edge of the Amazon–a region critical to the health of the entire Amazon. In addition, the impact work has focused on educating and campaigning for a deforestation-free supply chain around the world.

We Are Guardians was acquired earlier this year by Netflix throughout Latin America and the producers are currently in negotiations for a theatrical release across North America in Q1-2025.

Off The Fence (OTF) has closed two deals that will secure the debut of its latest acquisition, the two-part stranger-than-fiction documentary The Amazon Review Killer, in the US and the UK.

FOX News Media’s streaming service Fox Nation, has acquired the 2 x 60 mins documentary for the US in a deal brokered by OTF’s head of digital Oliver Taprogge. Under the agreement, the two-parter, produced by Manchester-based Enderley Pictures, will premiere in the US tonight. Meanwhile, Channel 4 acquisitions executive Felix Jones has pre-bought the documentary for the UK.

The documentary focuses on Todd Kohlhepp, known as the ‘Amazon Review Killer’, whose 13-year-long killing spree was uncovered after investigators followed a ‘digital breadcrumb trail’ of 140 Amazon reviews. Each eerily detailed, bizarrely nonchalant reviews led the detectives deeper into the warped mind of a killer who casually murdered seven unsuspecting victims. Kohlhepp's penchant for reviewing his weapons — from folding shovels to chainsaws — serves as the chilling focal point of the documentary, connecting the trail of seemingly unrelated murders.

Using archive material, bodycam footage and testimonies from detectives, lawyers, criminal psychologists and the families of both Kohlhepp’s victims and his survivors, The Amazon Review Killer tells the story of a man who hid in plain sight for over a decade, the survivor who helped put him away, and the detectives who stopped at nothing to bring him to justice.

Isobel Kinnear, acquisitions executive for OTF, said: “The true-crime genre continues to grow, both in popularity and in the quality and quantity of true-crime programming on the market. But with The Amazon Review Killer, we believe we’ve found something genuinely unique. This documentary isn't just a journey into darkness — although it’s certainly that. It's also a story of survival, perseverance and resilience. The salvation of Kohlhepp’s final victim and his ultimate capture should give us all hope that justice can and does prevail. The Amazon Review Killer is an extraordinary story brilliantly told by a production company that is unrivalled when it comes to telling binge-able, stranger-than-fiction true-crime stories.”