The barrage of online criticism and discussion about SNL UK was a useful tool that the show’s producers used to shape and develop their version of the long-running series, Helen Kruger Bratt, Managing Director of Universal Television Alternative Studio, said this morning at Deadline’s Reality TV Summit in London. 

Bratt, who oversees production on the UK edition, appeared this morning at the London Summit, which is being held as part of this year’s SXSW London festival, alongside Natalka Znak (Remarkable Entertainment, Initial, Znak TV),  David Brindley (Twofour), Tim Harcourt (Studio Lambert), and Ben Crompton (Fremantle). 

“It was about a five-year labor of love,” Kruger Bratt said when quizzed on the lengthy journey that brought SNL to the United Kingdom. Most of that work, she said, predated the start of her tenure. And the final product, she explained, was helped greatly by the overarching influence of the U.S. edition. 

“What was beautiful is that it’s a legacy, so you’ve got the foundations of what it takes to make that show,” Kruger Bratt said, adding that the online criticism about the show before it ran and during the release was used by the show’s team to shape episodes. 

“What went in its favour was that it was talked about so much even before it was on air, and not necessarily in a great way, and actually, I think that played into our favour in that we were able to take on board that criticism and address them in the show,” Kruger Bratt said. “So it’s all about engaging in that conversation and not shying away from it.” 

Kruger Bratt added: “We really leaned into that.” 

Kruger Bratt continued to say that cynics about the UK edition assumed the show would be populated by the “same old faces” of the UK comedy scene when, in actuality, the producers had been “sending teams to Edinburgh and doing open auditions to bring a new generation to the comedy scene.” 

Kruger Bratt also praised Sky for its robust support of the show. 

“We were very lucky to have Sky as a partner who put the money behind it,” she said.  “It takes a lot of money to produce this show. You have to trust the process. The social and marketing campaign Sky put behind this — we were very lucky.” 

SNL UK wrapped an eight-episode run in May and was promptly renewed for a second season. The show will return in September with an extended 12 episodes. The first season has featured hosts including Aimee Lou Wood, Nicola Coughlan and Tina Fey. Ncuti Gatwa hosted the last episode. 

Elsewhere during this morning’s session, the panelists were quizzed on the general trends currently shaping the non-scripted market. Crompton described international buyers in the market right now as “risk-averse.” 

“The biggest trend from the business side is that we, as producers, need to try and remove as much of that risk as possible,” he said. “There are still massive shows being made, and really exciting shows. I don’t believe in the death of unscripted. But the audiences have just become a bit more discerning.”

Znak said the most common ways to mitigate the risk today as unscripted producers is reducing cost and working with old formats with existing fanbases. 

“It’s much easier to sell old formats than it is to sell new,” she said, “which is really tricky and not helpful for most companies who don’t have access to a format catalog.” 

Znak continued to joke that her company has some “great old shows” and she’s thought about “repackaging my own shows and pretending they’re not my shows and saying they’re from Japan to sell them.” 

“I was saying that to my development team,” she joked. “Buyers need something to go on. They need reassurance.”

The Deadline Reality TV Summit runs today at SXSW London.

Saying sorry, and doing so authentically, is not easy. But apologies can change relationships, and in the case of political apologies, can redefine history. Belgian filmmaker Kristof Bilsen’s documentary The Apologist, which he wrote, directed and produced, now explores what the act of atonement can do to victims, wrongdoers and witnesses alike – how it can reshape lives.

World premiering in the international competition at Sheffield DocFest, which runs June 10-15, on Thursday, June 11, the film feels timely in an age when not a day goes by without a well-known politician or figure issuing a public apology, being called on to provide an apology, or failing to apologize.

The hybrid doc, featuring actress Musia Mwankumi and actor Valentijn Dhaenens as they develop a play and explore the art and pitfalls of apologies, features cinematography by Joachim Philippe, Bilsen and Diren Agbaba, with editing by Luca Mattei and co-edited by Aaron Minnebo. It was co-written by Xan Márquez Caneda.

The result is an emotional cinematic journey across continents, events, personal and collective trauma and accountability that moves between personal reflection, performance and ritual. Bilsen worked on set with systemic trainer and supervisor Ria Verlinden to unearth how many things are connected and can not be seen in isolation. The doc also features such scientists as Professor Juliette Schaafsma of Tilburg University, who has catalogued political apologies since the Walk to Canossa in 1077, widely regarded as the first-ever public apology, and Professor Roland Zahn of King’s College London, whose research explores guilt and self-blame and their relationship with empathy and apology.

The Apologist is a production by Bilsen’s Limerick Films in co-production with Tangerine Tree, Warboys Films and Wrong Men. Limerick is handling sales.

“As a child, I was bullied, and the lack of resolution or apology still affects me. I never felt that things were truly resolved, let alone an apology was given and this continues to have an impact later in life,” Bilsen shares in a director’s statement. “This personal experience mirrors a broader societal trend, where many peoples and communities today are waiting for apologies, sometimes for events decades or centuries old.”

He adds: “In the context of current social movements like Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and the colonial past’s reckoning, The Apologist addresses the timely question: Can public apologies lead to forgiveness, understanding, or change? … We challenge you to reconsider the meaning of apologies and set the stage for a deeper understanding of true reconciliation and acknowledgment.”

Check out a trailer for The Apologist here.

Ahead of Sheffield DocFest, Bilsen talked to The Hollywood Reporter about the six-year journey to make The Apologist, the weight of trauma and why saying sorry is much harder than it sounds.

What was the original idea for the film? You mention in the doc that you had to adjust its direction as your cinematic journey unfolded.

The initial idea was to make this very smart archive film based on public political apologies. But then it evolved from there.

What can you share about why you picked the title The Apologist for your doc?

I think halfway through the process, I realized the concept of apologies had this Christian religious connotation to it. And then, of course, there is also Plato’s Apology [or: The Apology of Socrates]. The whole notion of an apology is something beautiful, but at the same time, there is this whole irony of the title The Apologist, this kind of friction between self-awareness and defense.

How does The Apologist fit in with your past filmmaking?

My training is in deeply looking, observing and listening and being humble as a filmmaker, and I made my first two films that way.

My first one was Elephant’s Dream, which premiered in 2014 at IDFA in Amsterdam and was about public sector workers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a former Belgian colony. That was already very uncomfortable. Going to a former colony as a white male Belgian filmmaker, going there as the former oppressor in a way, or having that heritage of the oppressor.

My second film also premiered in Sheffield in 2019, and it is called Mother. It is about a Thai single mother giving care to Europeans with Alzheimer’s. That was a deep observation of the dilemma of love and care globally. What do we do with our elderly people here in Europe and how? We try to find them a better life, and one of the most absurd is to bring them to Thailand for their final years. How selfish! Again, that was an observation of friction and something very problematic in many ways, but also deeply human.

In the middle of COVID, I couldn’t observe [directly], so I thought I would observe archive material. It was the time of George Floyd, who died at the hands of police violence in the U.S., and the whole Black Lives Matter movement, which, sadly, some of us have already forgotten. And then I suddenly heard that our Belgian government said they should start a commission for the colonial past of Belgium with the ultimate goal of issuing apologies.

For me, performativity, insecurity, uncertainty, and all of that seemed to be coming together in one single image. And then I had to trust the process, which is pretty challenging with such a vast topic. So it took six years to make the film.

Was there any key lesson you had to learn in the process of production?

The big step for me was to let go of control of the project and the process. We live in a world that’s so binary about control – the good and the bad, the positioning. But what about the power of uncertainty and the dark and shadowy sides of all of us? So, a big moment was when I realized that a film about public apologies is also about something more, something else.

What is this “something else”?

We basically started delving into systemic and constellation work – starting from the whole idea that we are all part of family and [other] systems. Even if we are orphans, we still biologically come from a father and a mother. Behind them, there are their parents, behind them, their grandparents and great-grandparents. They’ve all won or lost, all had their doubts and successes, they’ve all been perpetrating things and they’ve all perpetrated. So, we stand on the shoulders of our ancestors, and that helped me see the world and the film systemically.

Yes, we yearn for control, and more and more we live in a time where we get an illusion of control, including politically. Through media and [technology], you feel you can check and control who has done something right or wrong. It’s an age where we can watch live streams of every war and every conflict in the world.

But responsibility is not only about an individual. You have to approach it collectively. You have to support each other as a community, which easily sounds wishy-washy and tree-huggy. But in exploring good and bad apologies, we also had to delve into our own contradictions, our own uncertainties and doubts and anxieties and ghosts of the past. Frailty, vulnerability and uncertainty is exactly what we need to face right here, right now. Things are uncertain and very shaky.

I picked up on this theme of how things are complex, even when they may sound simple, and how we may all have to get out of our comfort zones. Any key takeaways you think viewers may leave the doc with?

For me, the big, big lesson of the film is to stay in discomfort. Relationships are difficult. I’m a father of a six-year-old girl, and the film is dedicated to her. First, we have to acknowledge what is behind us and think about our ancestors. It’s humbling to accept that you’re just on a timeline, and your forefathers are present there with you.

Is that why you, Musia and Valentijn address your own views on key issues and how personal backgrounds and biases make an impact?

Yes. All [I just said] also applies to the idea of the documentary filmmaker. You can’t tell stories without yourself, without your own gaze, without questioning your own gaze, and without being humble to the process of investigating and being inquired.

There is clearly an opportunity for debates or other activities tied to screenings of The Apologist. Is there anything unusual that you are planning for Sheffield?

Of course, a classic Q&A and debate is one approach, and we will have those at the festival. But the danger there is that words take over and silences and bodily awareness disappear. The world premiere will be preceded by meditation in the cinema.

People shouldn’t feel scared away. If you just want to be present in the room and wait a couple of minutes, you’ll get to see the film that you bought a ticket for. Don’t worry! But we like to offer a space in which you are welcomed even when it’s hard. It is the first of several special screenings.

We are exploring building an impact campaign around it, exactly on the principles of awareness and systemic work. It’s nothing magical, but just an invitation to remember and to (re)connect with our awareness as ways into processing grief, acknowledgement and finding ways to explore together.

I heard that some TV networks are partners on The Apologist?

Yes, I think it’s very, very hopeful that this kind of film has been co-produced with four broadcasters – NDR [in Germany] in association with [European culture channel] ARTE, VPRO [in the Netherlands] and
VRT and RTBF [in Belgium]. It’s amazing, especially because there is uncertainty painted all over the film. It’s not your classic character-driven film that’s very safe.

If you had to simplify things majorly, what would your headline takeaway from The Apologist and your own work on it be for people who are considering watching the film?

It didn’t start with you. And: It’s not just about you. It’s about the humility of standing on your ancestors’ shoulders, which has really big implications and is not that romantic. You have to look at the pressure of the system that people are part of and what is expected of them.

Anything else you’d like to share?

There’s a very good line from [Swiss psychologist] Carl Gustav Jung. He said, “I would rather be a whole person than a good person.”

EXCLUSIVE: The Tony Award-winning Buena Vista Social Club musical kicking up a glorious storm on Broadway is heading to London’s West End in 2027, lead producer Orin Wolf tells Deadline.

The show won five Tony trophies last year, including a Special Award and a Best Featured Actress In A Musical honor for Natalie Venetia Belcon.

It imagines the origin story of the old-school Cuban musicians who assembled in Havana in 1996 to make what is now considered an historic recording session of their intoxicating music.

The resulting 1997 album was volcanic. Produced by Ry Cooder, who partnered with London-based music entrepreneur and producer Nick Gold, it taught the world once again how to rumba and do the mambo – that infectious blend of Afro-Cuban rhythm and Spanish melody that had us all shaking our bamba, hey.

Wolf says his show, directed by Saheem Ali, with Marco Ramirez’s book, Marco Paguia’s Tony Award-winning orchestrations and choreography by Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck (they won the Tony for their dance moves), is having the same hip-swivelling effect on Broadway audiences at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre.

Broadway’s Wolf is partnered with several producers, including Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda and Barbara Broccoli, who once ruled the kingdom of James Bond and is now laser-focused on her UK and U.S stage interests, as well as some movies.

Wolf says he’s eying a particular London venue that he hopes will be free next year. “It’s important we get the right space with the right vibe,” he tells us, well aware that musical houses in London are at a premium.

The producer, who had spent a decade developing David Yazbek’s award-winning musical The Band’s Visit, says that he often wondered about the troupe of elderly Cuban musicians who pulled off their momentous musical coup three decades ago.

Along with the album, Wolf was a fan of Wim Wenders’ 1999 documentary of the same name. His Buena Vista Social Club premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and the courtly gents from Havana beat out their electrifying rhythms. They could be heard across the German city. It was a great night and I was able to spend time with them on and off through the rest of 1999 into early 2000, all the way through to that season’s Oscars, where it lost to Kevin Macdonald’s gripping One Day In September.

A friend of Wolf’s had just made the follow-up documentary to the Wim Wenders feature. “I kept wondering why it hadn’t ever been theatricalized,” and then he went in search of Gold because he controlled the Buena Vista Social Club stage rights.

“And he said no, which was, of course, something I was very used to hearing,” Wolf says with a wry smile.

 Apparently, Gold had been wary of putting the rights in the hands of “western producers,” Wolf continues, because “he didn’t want it to become political bait.”

It was a view Wolf shared. “The good news is that this sort of political story would be very boring. So I’m not interested in telling that story.” 

So he invited Gold to visit The Band’s Visit, which by then had transferred from the Atlantic Theater Company (where I remember sitting behind Sarah Jessica Parker at a preview and she leapt outta her seat at curtain call and gave an ovation that outshines the ones at Cannes) to Broadway, and explained how it’s about “a bunch of Egyptians and Israelis” reasoning that it would explain “what I mean when I say that I don’t really make theater about politics, even though these happen to be politically volatile parts of the world.”

Gold and his daughter saw the show, “and we had dinner afterwards and he gave me the rights right away,” Wolf recalls.

Over the course of over two years, Wolf made half a dozen trips to Cuba, some accompanied by Yazbek, who was to become the show’s musical dramaturg. But, most of those visits were to assure the surviving musicians and their families that they would share in any financial success.

 “When I made the deal with Nick, I said, ‘I really want to tell the story of these actual artists. And so if we can carve in room for them on the royalty…’ There was a lot of burnt bridges between the album and the documentary with a lot of the people in Cuba feeling left out or unloved,” Wolf explains. 

I’m glad Wolf introduced this topic because it had been at the top of my mind to ask about whether compensation was due to the Cuban artists, who some felt had been, perhaps been taken for granted earlier on.  

Gold had told Wolf that  “a lot of things that were tricky” when they made the album.

 “Obviously, a lot of that has to do just with Cuban-American relations and economics and law, but there is a trust concern. So I flew down and I started getting to know all of the musicians on the album who were alive and the ones who had passed, I started to get to know their families. And over the course of two and a half, three years really, I was able to hire a Cuban lawyer and I drafted a moral rights law, a contract that basically gave every single character on our show a direct agreement with me that allows them to participate in the royalties,” Wolf declares.

That includes, Wolf tells us, the legendary Cuban singer and actress Omara Portuondo. “I have one with her and her son,” he adds. Ibrahim Ferrer died so Wolf went to his son.

“Everyone who’s in our show, Rubén González’s family. I met his son in Miami. I had to go to Mexico City to meet Ibrahim’s son. Eliades Ochoa and his family we’ve had relations with for years,” he reports.

 “It was unique in America because in London and in Europe and in the rest of the world, you guys have moral rights. And we don’t have that here in the U.S.,” he states.

Wolf stresses that he wasn’t obligated to go to such lengths, but he insists “it felt like the right thing to do. I felt like we could come up with a financial model that would allow for it. And also, I knew that eventually I would want this thing to go to Europe and to go to the UK and to have an international existence because this album does not belong to America at all. In fact, if anything, America’s sort of an afterthought. This album really belongs to the world. And so to serve the music, which I know is very meaningful to a lot of people, I felt like, well, I’ve got to come up with a system that’s going to allow me to do that.”

After its initial run at Atlantic Theater Company, representatives from many of the musicians’ families went to the Broadway opening in March last year. 

“Obviously the ones that are in Cuba right now, it’s very, very difficult,” Wolf says in reference to the U.S. naval blockade disrupting Cuba’s fuel and other supplies.

“It’s horrible. It’s a nightmare for them. And we’re trying obviously to be supportive and to do whatever we can do. But even since the last time I was there, it’s just gotten worse and worse. I mean, it’s really a sad state of affairs, like so many places in the world, but that was an extraordinary part of this process that I’m going to always feel very lucky to have gotten to experience,” Wolf says with gratitude.

The royalty split is a good thing to do. Others have done variations thereof on other shows, but the Cuban musicians, singers and their descendants are kinda owed this.

Wolf says that the contract negotiations with many of the original members of the Buena Vista Social Club were the first building blocks in building the production’s architecture.

“Here I am as an American, sort of a white Jewish guy coming in. But it’s bizarre because this album found its way into my life. When I was coming out of college and I had this album on all the time, and I’m not a fluent Spanish speaker, but this music, it just moves me. And then the documentary was able to give you a visual language for this music and introduce you to the world of Havana,” Wolf says.

 Wolf had to answer an important question: “Can I do an American Broadway musical with a score in a foreign language and not use any subtitles?”

He believes that there’s a world where people can actually successfully communicate emotion even if you don’t understand the language. People have been doing it for eons. One of the greatest joys of my life was watching my favourite uncle, a big, mighty chieftain visiting from my family’s little kingdom in Nigeria, watching The Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre absolutely enraptured. He didn’t really understand any of it, probably thought it was about him. He talked about it until the day he died.

I digress. The Buena Vista Social Club films and album have always stayed with me. Recently, I saw a group of dancers on the Southbank boardwalk performing what seemed like an impromptu performance of the rumbustious ‘Chan Chan’ number, which is featured in the show. That to my way of thinking was a perfect example of sharing the joy.

It’s crazy, really, because I listen to the music of Israel ‘Cachao’Lopez, Celia Cruz and Johnny Pacheco, and I bow at the feet of Ramón ‘Mongo’ Santamaria and Juan Formell. I could lead a swell rumba through Ramsgate, echa!

 Which leads me to dancing.

The Buena Vista Social Club features feet-twitching music and Wolf says that, obviously, people want to get up and dance but that’s just not allowed. Except there have been a couple of special performances at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre where they do the whole show but it’s a special, what they call The Buena Vista Dance Along Night -Lin-Manuel Miranda and John Leguizamo have each hosted one.

“But every time that we’re in the club in the show, and we just bring the house lights up just a little bit and let the audience just feel free to get up and dance…And people are dancing in the aisles, people are dancing in their seats, people went to the back of the theater to dance. It was really hilarious and funny and fun,” Wolf says cheerily.

 He’d like to introduce an occasional Buena Vista Dance Along Night feature in London too. “I want to get the right theater. I want it to be a great experience because I know the musicianship that we have access to in London, and by the way, we can also bring Cubans to London the way we cannot do in the U.S. And there’s a lot of people in Cuba who want to be in the show who couldn’t do it on Broadway. But the opportunity in London,” Wolf suggests, ”is massive with the talent you have there.”

Actually, we both recognize that there’s a much larger Cuban and Afro-Cuban community in London than in New York, and they’re boisterous and fun to behold on the odd sunny Saturday afternoon on London Fields or way over in Margate, which, weirdly, reminds me a little of Cuba, with its crumbling charm and hint of danger.

I get why Wolf feels anxious about finding the right spot for Buena Vista Social Club. 

But he’s in good hands because Broccoli knows London theaters like the back of her hand, and the good people at Playful Productions UK, who are also producing, are just as adept in the art of securing a theater.

I love all the behind-the-scenes chess moves that are going on right now involving a dozen big shows with about two, possibly three theaters in play.

“As soon as that theater presents itself, we’re kind of raring to go. We really are hoping it’s in 2027. I mean, that would be ideal, but we are 1000 percent committed to this,” Wolf acclaims.

Give this man a theater, already. 

Look, I could do with the dance exercise, so there’s that.