Showcasing Stress-Filled Reality of Emergency Medicine, Gritty Hospital Drama ‘KRANK Berlin’ Strives for Authenticity (EXCLUSIVE)
variety.comEd Meza @edmezavar While medical dramas have long been a favorite staple on German TV, a new series helmed by Alex Schaad, director of the award-winning fantasy romance “Skin Deep,” and penned by British writer Samuel Jefferson looks set to give the genre a bold, modern take. “KRANK Berlin” is an eight-part series that follows a young team of doctors in the toughest and most overcrowded medical facility in the city.
Underpaid, poorly equipped, chronically overtired and beset with an increasingly callous healthcare system, the doctors nevertheless cope with dark humor, although some turn to more extreme measures.
Produced by Real Film Berlin and Violet Pictures for ZDFneo and based on an idea by creative producer and co-creator Viktor Jakovleski, “KRANK Berlin” stars Haley Louise Jones (“Dear Child”) as Zanna Parker, the hospital’s new chief doctor, whose reform measures are immediately met with resistance from the staff, particularly anarchist emergency doctor Ben, played by Slavko Popadic (“Skylines”).
The series’ title is a play on the German word for “sick” but also the acronym for the fictional hospital, or Krankenhaus, serving Berlin’s southern districts of Neukölln and Kreuzberg.
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