For the love of DRAMA
TV series
MADE IN EUROPE
MAY ONE is a boutique drama company focusing on developing and producing premium drama series that bring fresh stories to both a local and international audience, in a popular and accessible form.
TV SERIES PRODUCtion IN CENTRAL EUROPE starts here
Set up by HBO alums Johnathan Young and Ioanina Pavel and based out of Bucharest, Berlin and London, MAY ONE develops premium TV series, limited and ongoing. Pulling on years of experience in the TV industry, we develop four-quadrant, audience-first series with European cross-cultural through-lines and a Western angle, that can be shot organically in Eastern Europe. We’re basing this approach on the last original series we made for HBO Europe, Spy/Master, a spy thriller that came together through the combined efforts of talent from the UK, Romania, Germany, Poland and Hungary.
MAY ONE’s first commission is an upcoming local original series for NETFLIX, SUBTERAN.
MEET yOUR PRODUCERs
Johnathan started as a drama Director before becoming a Producer. He produced more than 1000 hours of television in the United Kingdom, including the BAFTA nominated The Sinking Of The Laconia, a co-production with Teamworx from Germany.
In 2014 Johnathan joined HBO Europe as VP Original Production, overseeing drama development and production across the region. In that capacity, he executive produced series like Wataha, The Thaw and Blinded by the Lights in Poland, Hackerville and Spy/Master in Romania, and Mammon in the Czech Republic.
In 2023, Johnathan left HBO and started May One with Ioanina Pavel, who had been running HBO Romania’s Original Productions department.
Ioanina is a creative producer and co-founder of prod-co May One. She is all about TV, so your email will either find her making it or binging it.
As HBO Romania's Head of Original Production, Ioanina looked after the slate and writers and creative-produced local dramas, docu-series and reality series – among them LGBTQIA+ rom-com RUXX, reality series One True Singer, and spy thriller Spy/Master, which world-premiered in competition at the 2023 Berlinale and aired on BBC4 in May 2024.
Ioanina's mantra is the audience knows best and comes first. Be a storyteller, be original, go against the grain - but never against the audience.
may one in the trades
Pull quotes:
“May One will seek to develop, produce and provide creative partnership for quality series shot in Romania, working with established and new talent from both within and outside the country. The company will look to open up Romanian resources and talent to the international industry to create collaborations in Europe and beyond. In that sense, it harks back to HBO Europe’s ethos, which sought to bring together Central Eastern European talent with others from Western Europe and the U.S.” (DEADLINE)
‘“Romania is a hotbed for creativity, and the country provides an enticing and fascinating backdrop for TV,” says Young. “With our knowledge and network in this vibrant, exciting space we want to be a hub for local talent, to attract collaborations, and create high-quality drama that brings a different flavor to international audiences.”
“Here in Romania we have ideas that won’t be found anywhere else, and the creative talent to back them up,” says Pavel. “Our aim is to elevate these for local and global audiences, tapping into our unique vision and landscape to create bold, genre shows that feel unique and distinctive, but have broad appeal.”’ (THR)
“We offer something unique. We have a wealth of experience in premium series, we have great connections in Romania, CE and beyond. We can bring a fresh perspective and fresh voices to great genre ideas and we are very agile.
There is no real precedent for what we are doing so everything we do feels like breaking new ground - which is very exciting…. There are amazing (and quite surprising) stories in CE, and especially now. Our focus is on finding ways to present them in really compelling, exciting ways so the commissioner really can’t say no. We are thinking this means dynamic writing, big ideas and confident genre. And top talent and an attractive production package - of course.” (May One for CEETV)
“There’s no premium drama series specialist company in Romania. There are extremely good film and documentary companies. There’s local television, but there’s nobody doing quite what we do. We hope we’ve filled a gap in the market.
Ioanina can articulate the Romanian experience, and I can look at things and say, That’s really interesting. Also, Romania is changing. People have preconceptions about Romania. As you spend time there, you start to understand how wrong they can be. We’re excited about that. We don’t want to change the world, but we do think there’s dramatic potential in puncturing people’s misconceptions.
We’re very keen to do Romanian shows in Romania for Romania, but we’re also very keen to build on the success of Spy/Master and work with producing colleagues in other countries. We have very good relationships with producers in Poland and Hungary through HBO, as well as in Germany and [in the U.K.]. We’re looking at doing German-language and English-language shows that have that Central European DNA.” (Johnathan Young for WorldScreen.com)
IT ALL BEGINS WITH AN IDEA
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IT ALL BEGINS WITH AN IDEA ✦
