From ‘Ezel’ to ‘The Cost of Lies’: Bringing Turkish Dramas to the World Stage – Exclusive Interview with Handan Özkubat, Director of Turkish Drama at Eccho Rights

We had the opportunity to sit down with Handan Özkubat, Director of Turkish Drama at Eccho Rights, to discuss the continued global success of their hit series Golden Boy as well as their latest titles The Cost of Lies and Beneath the Surface.

Handan Özkubat also provided insights into the adaptations of their cult classics, such as Ezel and My Sweet Lie, the growing international demand for Turkish dramas, and the popularity of strong female-led narratives in shows like I Am Mother. Additionally, she highlighted Eccho Rights’ expanding catalog and their agenda for MIPCOM 2024.

Over the past two years, Golden Boy has made a significant impact worldwide. In your opinion, what made Golden Boy so popular, and how did it capture the attention of audiences in such diverse countries? Could you share more details about its global journey?

Handan Özkubat: Golden Boy was a real return to the very classic roots of Turkish drama – a handsome guy and a beautiful girl from opposite worlds fall in love, and despite the conflicts that arise due to their differences, they can’t resist the romance that keeps pulling them back together. These are key elements for an all around success, but what sets Golden Boy apart is its high scale, luscious production, and the very modern way in which the story is told.

The new season of I Am Mother has started and new actors joined the cast. How has the show been performing globally so far?

We have received great interest from buyers worldwide, particularly with the addition of stars Engin Öztürk and Nesrin Cavadzade, for the second season. Global audiences already love Özge Özpirinçci but the introduction of these new actors and their characters has heightened even further the excitement for the title. We have already closed sales in more than 40 territories, and with the start of the second season we are now seeing confirmed interest from even more international buyers.

 The Cost of Lies is highly anticipated in Türkiye, and you’ll be introducing the series at MIPCOM. What can you share about the series?

Handan Özkubat: The Cost of Lies is a really exciting series, while still returning to those key Turkish drama cornerstones: romance, family drama and personal conflicts that anyone can relate to. The series follows a good family man, Adem (Timuçin Esen), who has a modest job but does everything he can to provide for his wife Canan (Şükran Ovalı) and kids. When he suddenly loses his job he falls in to a life he never expected, alongside his swindler brother Kartal, making a fortune in counterfeited money. This new nefarious lifestyle awakens feelings in Canan that she hasn’t known for a long time – but she isn’t sure she likes them. Meanwhile Kartal is entering a delicate balancing act, on the one hand leading his brother further down a crooked path, while at the same time becoming ever closer to the beautiful police officer Ayşe (Deniz Baysal).

TOD’s new series, Beneath the Surface, is a successful crime drama and a recent addition to your catalog. How do shows like this, released on digital platforms, perform globally, and what are your expectations for this one?

Handan Özkubat: While the traditional Turkish drama series have a strong hold on linear TV around the world, it has not always been easy to find homes for them with streaming platforms, so shorter form series are a great fit for those streamers looking to try something different – they see the success of Turkish drama and want to try it out so having a shorter run of episodes is a great  opportunity for them. Beneath the Surface is an especially exciting project, with a unique and intriguing story, led by one of Turkish drama’s biggest stars in Hazal Kaya, and a string of other big names so we expect great things!

You also represent the new daily series A Journey to Belong. Could you give us an overview of the show? In which countries are daily dramas from Türkiye most popular?

Handan Özkubat: Daily dramas have been doing brilliantly well for a number of years, particularly in the CEE region and right across Latin America. One thing that has always worked really well in these types of series is a multi-generational family story, so we are really excited for A Journey to Belong, which is all about how family’s life gets flipped upside down when a little girl is left to the care of her grandmother – who didn’t even know she existed. The granddaughter’s appearance triggers the unveiling of all manner of family issues and generations of secrets.

Series like I Am Mother and My Home My Destiny focus on strong female characters and powerful stories of struggle. Do you think there’s growing global interest in stories about women? What do you think is driving the success of Turkish series in this type of storytelling?

Handan Özkubat: We have certainly seen a modernizing of tastes and growing demand for stories about women that are independent and proud to stand up for themselves, not always the poor woman that needs a strong man to save her! While conservative attitudes prevail in much of the world, we are proud to be part of bringing more stories of empowered women to international audiences.

You’ve sold the rights to the cult series Ezel in over 150 countries, and it was recently adapted in India. Greece also adapted the series My Sweet Lie. Have you sold adaptation rights for other Turkish series? Could you share some insights into these processes and how adaptations contribute to the success of Turkish shows?

Handan Özkubat: Yes, international appetite for Turkish scripts has certainly grown in recent times. The Greek adaptation was in fact the second for My Sweet Lie, which has run very successfully as a Slovakian version for multiple seasons now. We also had a remake for The Red Room in Greece last year. In Romania we started there also with a remake of Ezel a few years ago, Vlad, that was hugely successful. We then worked on a remake of another top Turkish title Insider, which as The Clan was even more popular, so much so that it has actually received a spin-off of its own, Our Father, which is launching this season in Romania. It tells the origin story of the hugely popular villain, who fans of the original will remember as Celal the Kebab man! We believe this is the first deal of its kind, where a Turkish script has been remade with an entirely new series being spawned from that remake. The volume of drama production in Türkiye is really unrivalled anywhere else in the world, so writers have to be creative and constantly come up with unique ideas to make their projects stand out. This, in return makes a great pool of content for international producers to select from when sourcing a new script.

Eccho Rights has a very rich catalog, ranging from crime shows to family dramas, period series to romantic dramas. Which series have stood out in the most in recent years? Which content has been the most successful in helping you reach new countries and regions?

Handan Özkubat: While we continue to grow in many directions, Turkish drama series remain the bedrock of our success. You only have to look at Golden Boy to see that there are still opportunities to break new ground for Turkish content, for example we made the first ever sale of a Turkish drama to Finland, and the first to a commercial broadcaster in Sweden.

Eccho Rights represents not only Turkish content but also titles from various other countries. Could you share more about these shows and how they’ve been performing globally.

Handan Özkubat: Through our office in London, we have been growing our offering of English language drama titles, and the latest of these is Safe Harbor, which we are launching at MIPCOM this year. The series has a cast of stars, including Alfie Allen and Jack Gleeson from Game of Thrones, and Colm Meaney who many will recognise from a string of hit TV and film projects. These series often require a slightly different sales strategy as we are involved much earlier in the pre-production process but their international success is almost guaranteed from the start by relationships that we put in place at the commissioning stage where many broadcasters and platforms join the projects early through acquired co-production.

What are your goals for MIPCOM 2024 and the new season overall?

We want to remind everyone that we are the go-to partner for acquisitions executives looking for the best content in the market, and for producers looking for the most fruitful opportunities for their wonderful series!

This exclusive interview with Handan Özkubat was featured in Episode Magazine’s MIPCOM 2024 issue.