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.”

Loren Baxter at Off The Fence calls for the TV industry family to rally round and find ways to break out of the repetitiveness that’s plaguing factual production and distribution.

Those who know me will know that I’ve just returned from a wonderfully amazing (and exhausting) maternity leave after having my first child. Having worked in this industry, and distribution specifically, since I was fresh out of university more than 15 years ago, it felt quite strange to be leaving the business for a while.

What struck me was the level of connection I felt with people I’ve met through my job – my colleagues of course, but beyond that, real friends who showed their care outside of the workspace. The one thing I missed dearly from being so absent: the people.

It’s this sense of reciprocity and connection that I would appeal to our community to create and value above and beyond anything else.

Looking at our world with changed eyes, it’s easy to understand the gripes and grumbles and, at the moment, very tangible collapses. I have spoken to hundreds of producers in the non-scripted market to know there’s a real sense of demotivation, the endless development of ideas, the pitching, the ghosting, the rejection, and yet there are still the favoured few that share news of commissions.

Our business has and always will thrive off the relationships we build, and those relationships are endless. So why does it feel like the industry is getting somewhat smaller?

I sat in a meeting last week listening to what could be an incredible piece of factual content. It had a great story and an imaginative editorial style, yet I couldn’t think of a single home for it. Why? Because the majority of TV is stuck in a cycle of repetitiveness with ideas that seem new but are, for the most part, the same. For distribution, that engages a sense of reliability, sure. But those reliable shows fall into that ‘squeezed middle’ where it takes four or five partners to greenlight a project to achieve a sub-par return with a usually hefty price tag for the distributor.

On the other hand, content has evolved, it’s come out of its shell, and we can thank the streaming boom for that. But what was once a very simple marketplace is now a busy, fast-changing landscape with so much choice for the viewer no wonder channels are afraid to make the wrong move – there’s no room for error. Producers need to have THE story, THE access and so many other tick boxes to get so far, and that also comes with a hefty price tag.

Becoming a parent demands some rapid growing up and I’m wondering whether our industry could do with maturing into a more sustainable system that distributes the opportunities more fairly. The onus is not solely on the buyers, or the distributors for that matter. Producers need to really take ownership of their local markets, follow the trades and really understand what slot they’re developing for and who else on the international market might want to join the party.

Distributors like Off the Fence can help and advise on the latter, but understanding your home market and, better yet, really getting to know those buyers, is vital. Trust is key in any relationship and it’s perhaps this that needs to be gained once more. Producers need a bit more guidance from the channels to not just steer them in the right direction but to try to give producers clear timelines around decision making. Anecdotally, many producers report that shoots have been delayed or access has been revoked because the channel interested has had two board meetings cancelled.

If the US doesn’t start making a noise financially soon, put simply, the production of content will not thrive. Access and talent are expensive and shows just aren’t getting to reach their full potential without the funding the US can offer. We’re definitely seeing a rise in alternative funding through brands and government tax incentives, but there’s not enough to go around and often producers need a channel on board to even make those new possibilities viable.

The TV family is dysfunctional, like most others, but where uncertainty is the new norm, being calm and resilient to change requires a solid community that looks out for each other, communicates and is compassionate and honest, just like we are in our real lives. We have a responsibility to ensure our well-loved TV community not only survives but flourishes.

Perhaps the industry itself is on maternity leave and one can only hope that after a considerable number of sleepless nights, some rallying around and a few adult conversations, we’ll have a bright newborn future to make it all worthwhile.