Spielberg to make docudrama at Jerusalem hospital

Emmy Award-winning producer Phil Rosenthal will direct.

Famed film producer Steven Spielberg plans to produce a docudrama series set at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. Emmy Award-winning producer Phil Rosenthal, the creator and producer of the hit sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond", will direct.

Dreamworks Studios, in which Spielberg is a partner, will produce the docudrama to be set and filmed in the hospital. Sources inform ''Globes'' that Israeli producer Zafrir Kochanovsky's TTV Productions Ltd. will apparently co-produce the show.

Spielberg, one of the world's most successful movie directors and producers, has intended for a long time to work with the Israeli movie and television industry. He has already made two films with Israeli inputs: Schindler's List in 1993, about German businessman Oskar Schindler who saved Jewish families during the Holocaust, and Munich in 2005, about the PLO massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games, and the subsequent killing of the terrorists by the Mossad. In both films, Spielberg used many Israeli actors.

Spielberg is also a sponsor of the Holocaust Survivor Project, which documents survivors' histories.

The Shaare Zedek docudrama will go a step further, as it will be the first coproduction between Dreamworks and an Israeli producer. The project is not a philanthropic endeavor, irrespective of Spielberg's close ties to Israel; Spielberg will apparently try to sell it in as many countries as possible, including the US.

Hospital television dramas attract large audiences, with shows such as "General Hospital", "ER", and "Chicago Hope" among the many dramas set in hospitals over the decades. The Shaare Zedek will, however, be a docudrama, another very popular genre, and, more importantly, it will provide an opportunity to show authentic, original drama. The religious hospital serves secular and haredi (ultra-orthodox) Jews communities, as well as Arabs from Jerusalem and the West Bank, and Jewish settlers.

The docudrama may be considered an international coproduction. Collaborations with foreign producers have been increasing in Israel, so in which case, prominent European television funds and networks may also participate, such as Britain's BBC, France's ARTE, and Germany's ZDF.

Phil Rosenthal told "Globes", "Spielberg asked me to consider doing television in Israel. I proposed making a docudrama about Shaare Zedek hospital, to which my family and I have made donations for decades. He loved the idea of a crowded hospital whose patients are secular Jews, haredim, Arabs, and some of whose doctors are Americans. We'll get the show on the road very soon."

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 3, 2009

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2009

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