Filmmakers behind acclaimed ‘McQueen’ to produce high-end fashion series in collaboration with Fremantle for Sky Documentaries

Sky Original docuseries, Kingdom of Dreams, a thrilling archive-led story set in the world of fashion, is announced today. Produced by award-winning production company, Misfits Entertainment, in collaboration with Fremantle, the 4x60 minutes series will launch on Sky Documentaries and NOW in 2022.

Kingdom of Dreams will be a visually dazzling chronicle of the fashion world spanning three decades - from the early-1990s to the 2010s. It is a Golden Age, a time when the forces of ground-breaking creativity and disruptive business converge and collide. Fashion explodes out of the traditional, elite kingdoms of haute couture and style - Paris, Milan, London and New York - to become a truly global phenomenon. Unfolding over four episodes, the series will chart a high-stakes story packed with the seductive beauty and dramatic intrigue behind the most iconic fashion moments and shows of the era.

The documentary is created by London-based Misfits Entertainment, whose credits include high-end feature documentaries such as the BAFTA-nominated McQueen, and the Emmy-winning Netflix documentary Rising Phoenix. The renowned production outfit headed up by filmmakers Ian Bonhôte, Dee Ryder and Peter Ettedgui, began developing Kingdom of Dreams with Fremantle shortly after the theatrical release of McQueen, fueled by a mission to create an ambitious, landmark piece of event television. Employing a bold cinematic approach to non-fiction storytelling, the series will harness rare library material, never-before-seen personal archives, powerful visuals and story-driven interviews to bring this Golden Age to electrifying life on the screen.

The Sky Original documentary has been commissioned for Sky Documentaries by Zai Bennett, Managing Director of Content, Poppy Dixon, Director of Documentaries and Factual and Jamie Morris, Director of Programmes and negotiated by Jack Oliver, Head of Co-Productions, Sky Entertainment. Hayley Reynolds, Commissioning Editor, and Jack Oliver will also serve as executive producers for Sky UK. The series will be distributed internationally by Fremantle.

Poppy Dixon, Director of Documentaries and Factual at Sky, said: “The creativity, opportunity and mystery inherent in the fashion industry has always sparked curiosity and intrigue. When the team at Misfits and Fremantle shared their ambitious plans to tell the story of how the industry grew to become the global behemoth it is now, we knew Sky Documentaries would be the perfect home for this captivating story.”

Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, Misfits Entertainment, creators and executive producers of Kingdom of Dreams, said: We are immensely grateful to Fremantle and Sky for giving us the opportunity to return to the fashion world and expand on the narrative approach we evolved for McQueen to tell the story of a truly extraordinary period in fashion. We can’t wait to share it with audiences all over the world.”

Sky Documentaries is the home of world-class, real life stories from award-winning and emerging film makers, including new Sky Original documentaries, as well as acquisitions from HBO, SHOWTIME® and beyond. With a mix of feature length documentaries and limited series that challenge, provoke and entertain, the channel explores a broad range of topics from sport and real-world controversies through to biographies of some of the world’s most famous and infamous people.

In the UK, Ireland, Italy, Germany and Austria, the series will launch on Sky Documentaries. In the UK, Ireland and Italy, it will also be available on streaming service NOW, as well as Sky Ticket devices in Germany, Sky X in Austria and Sky Show in Switzerland.

For further information please contact:

Sky Documentaries

Hephzibah Kwakye-Saka | PR Manager, Factual - hephzibah.kwakyesaka@sky.uk

Jessica Gray | PR Executive - jessica.gray@sky.uk

Fremantle

Samira Sorzano | Senior Manager, Global PR – Samira.Sorzano@fremantle.com

t. +44 (0) 7999 567890

Notes to editors

About Misfits Entertainment

Misfits is a filmmaking collective whose core team - Ian Bonhôte, Dee Ryder and Peter Ettedgui - boast an array of moving image experience: from short form (music videos and commercials) to series television; from independent films to studio movies; from drama to non-fiction. With their two recent acclaimed feature films McQueen (nominated for two Baftas including Best British Film) and Rising Phoenix (winner of two Emmys), the trio has earned a reputation for their visceral and emotion-led approach to documentary.

About Sky 

Sky is Europe’s leading media and entertainment company and is proud to be part of the Comcast group. Across six countries, we connect our 23.4 million customers to the best entertainment, sports, news and arts including our own award-winning original content. 

Our technology, including the market leading Sky Q, connects people to everything they love – with entertainment from Sky TV, Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and BBC iPlayer, and apps like Spotify, YouTube, BBC Sounds, Highbrow, Peloton, Fiit, and more, in one place, easy. Our streaming service NOW brings viewers all the enjoyment of Sky with the flexibility of a contract-free service. Through our new B2B broadband provider, Sky Connect, we offer superfast broadband with business-grade 4G back-up to small businesses in the UK. 

Building on the success of Sky Originals like Chernobyl, Gangs of London and Brassic, we are doubling our investment in original content by 2024 through Sky Studios. Sky News provides impartial and trustworthy journalism for free, Sky Arts is the UK’s only dedicated free-to-air arts channel making the arts accessible for everyone and Sky Sports, our leading sports broadcasting service, brings customers some of the biggest and best global sporting events from the Premier League to Formula 1 and everything in-between. Our new TV and movie studio, Sky Studios Elstree, which will open in 2022, is expected to create over 2,000 new jobs and generate an additional £3 billion of production investment in the UK over the first five years. 

We believe that we can be a force for good in the communities in which we operate. We’re committed to being Europe’s first net zero carbon entertainment company by 2030 and we’re proud to be a Principal Partner and Media Partner of COP26. We take pride in our approach to diversity and inclusion: we’ve been recognised by The Times and Stonewall for our commitment to diversity and we’ve set ambitious 2025 targets to continue to increase diversity and representation.  We’re also committed to investing £30million across our markets over three years to improve our approach to diversity and inclusion, and to tackle racial injustice. 

About Fremantle

Fremantle is one of the largest and most successful creators, producers and distributors of scripted and unscripted content in the world. From Got Talent to My Brilliant Friend, Family Feud to The Young Pope, Idols to American Gods, The Price is Right to Neighbours and The X Factor to Enslaved - we are behind the world’s most-loved and most-watched shows.

We have an outstanding international network of production teams, companies and labels in over 30 countries - our Fremantle family includes UFA (Germany), Wildside (Italy), Abot Hameiri (Israel), Miso Film (Denmark, Sweden and Norway), Blue Circle (Netherlands), Original Productions (USA) and Easy Tiger (Australia) to name a few.

We produce in excess of 12,000 hours of original programming, roll out more than 70 formats and air 400 programmes a year worldwide. We also distribute over 30,000 hours of content in over 180 territories.

We are also a world leader in digital and branded entertainment with more than 470 million fans across 1,600 social channels and over 40 billion views per year across all platforms. We are also the creator of Facebook’s most viewed video of all time, The Sacred Riana.

For more information, visit www.fremantle.com, or follow us @FremantleHQ and visit our LinkedIn and Facebook pages.