EXCLUSIVE: My Octopus Teacher producer Off The Fence is going deeper into true crime through a development deal with investigative journalists Robin Carter and Gloria Gomez, and is making doc about an unsung modern warfare specialist.
Under terms of the pact, OTF will develop and produce true-crime series based on the contacts, intelligence and access Carter and Gomez have amassed during their careers on the domestic beat in the U.S.
The debut project will be Love & Death Row: The Rosalie Bolin Story, a series about one of the the strangest and most complex stories in the history of the U.S. criminal-justice system.
The story begins in 1986, when rapist and serial killer Oscar Ray Bolin was convicted with three murders in Florida. It then follows how paralegal Rosalie Martinez gave up her life married to a leading defense attorney after meeting Bolin in 1995 to discuss his case. She would later marry Bolin via a speaker phone ceremy and remained with him until his execution in 2016, and went on to become a private investigator and death penalty mitigation specialist.
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“The experiences and perspectives of those who have been on the frontline of stranger-than-fiction cases exerts a powerful fascination — and it would be difficult to find a stranger or more powerful story than Love & Death Row, or two more reliable or insightful witnesses than Gloria and Robin,” said OTF Head of Development Celine Ritchie. “One of Off The Fence’s particular strengths is its ability to forge creative partnerships with people who have great stories waiting be told.”
Gomez is a general-assignment reporter specialising in court cases and the criminal-justice system, and has worked with the Tampa Bay FOX 13 News team for the past 20 years. Carter is a photojournalist with three decades of experience at news stations in Virginia, Texas and Florida. She joined NBC 5 in 2019, and has worked in all facets of television, including news production, medical reporting, consumer affairs and special projects.
‘King of Kandahar’
OTF has struck a second co-development deal in the U.S., after teaming with Makuhari Media on feature doc King of Kandahar.
The three-part series chronicles the life of Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Iqbal Selanee, a teenage interpreter for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, who rose to command an elite, CIA-directed paramilitary unit. Considered an unsung hero of modern warfare, Selanee saved the lives of two U.S. journalists and shielded hundreds of Afghans stranded at Kandahar Air Base.
Makuhari was founded by Bobby Valentine and Andrew J. Muscato following the 2008 ESPN Films doc The Zen of Bobby V. It has made feature docs such as Ballplayer: Pelotero and Schooled: The Price of College Sports.
Producer-distributor OTF, known for the Oscar-winning doc My Octopus Teacher, has offices in Amsterdam, London, Bristol and Toronto. Its OTF Originals banner has made more than 700 hours of programs for the likes of National Geographic, Netflix, Curiosity Stream, ARTE and the BBC. Germany’s ZDF Studios, the commercial wing of pubcaster ZDF, acquired the company in 2019.
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