Global Drama’s Golden Age: Why Television Must Dare to Surprise

Ron Leshem, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter and creator of the Israeli series that influenced HBO’s cultural phenomenon “Euphoria,” has declared that television is entering a golden age of international storytelling. Addressing this year’s Canneseries festival, Leshem—whose credits include “Valley of Tears,” “No Man’s Land” and “Bad Boy”—argued passionately that independent creators and cross-border narratives hold the key to revitalising television drama. As streaming platforms increasingly retreat into domestically-oriented programming and broadcasters play it safe, Leshem remains bullishly optimistic about the future, backed by his own slate of expansive global initiatives spanning Brazil, Australia, Europe and France. His conviction comes at a pivotal juncture when international drama risks being dismissed as merely a budget solution or exotic niche rather than a transformative medium transforming the medium.

The Case for Daring, Limit-Breaking Story Creation

Leshem’s central argument questions the widespread risk-aversion in current television. Rather than falling back on safe formulas, he maintains that international storytelling offers something the industry critically demands: authentic originality. When television channels and digital platforms stick to proven models, greenlighting only time-tested formulas and conventional stories, they forfeit the format’s essential ability to inspire and disturb. Leshem believes this point in time demands the opposite approach—creators must embrace the untested, push into untested territories, and trust audiences to follow them into unfamiliar and unsettling ground. The original Israeli “Euphoria” exemplified this philosophy, bringing raw authenticity and cultural specificity to a story that surpassed its beginnings to become a worldwide success.

The economics of global production, Leshem highlights, truly emancipate rather than constrain creative ambition. Whilst American television persistently calls for substantial financial investment to justify greenlight decisions, overseas projects can achieve comparable production values at reduced financial outlay. This budgetary adaptability paradoxically enables increased artistic experimentation. Creators operating in international settings don’t face the same commercial pressures that force American networks toward lowest-common-denominator storytelling. Instead, they can champion original viewpoints, experimental story structures, and the kind of bold experimentation that finally creates the most enduring and culturally important content.

• Global drama opens doors to fresh settings, setups and dramatic trajectories
• Independent producers can produce quality programming at significantly reduced costs
• International content attracts audiences tired of formulaic television
• Cultural distinctiveness establishes genuine appeal that transcends geographical boundaries

Disrupting the Established Model

The television industry’s present risk aversion constitutes a fundamental misreading of viewer demand. Streaming services and traditional broadcasters have grown obsessed with metrics and algorithmic predictability, leading to an endless parade of retreads and sequels. Yet audiences keep turning toward programmes that catch them off guard—narratives that feel truly transgressive, ethically nuanced, and culturally rooted. Global drama, by its very nature, resists the standardising tendency that dominates mainstream American television. When creators work across different cultural contexts and production ecosystems, they’re forced to approach things anew, to question assumptions, to move past the well-worn paths that have calcified into industry convention.

Leshem’s personal production company, Crossing Oceans, reflects this philosophy through its intentionally global portfolio. From “Paranoia” in Brazil to “Revolution,” a France Télévisions partnership with Iranian filmmakers, his works intentionally court artistic tension and cross-cultural exchange. These aren’t prestige vanity projects intended to gather festival laurels; they’re calculated bets that audiences globally hunger for stories that challenge, disorient, and eventually reshape them. By embracing the unknown rather than shying away from it, Leshem suggests, television can reclaim its position as the medium where genuine artistic risk-taking still matters.

From Israeli Foundations to Global Aspirations

Ron Leshem’s journey from Israeli television to global recognition exemplifies the far-reaching influence of locally-rooted storytelling. His early work in Israeli drama positioned him as a recognisable storytelling force, willing to confront intricate ethical and cultural questions with unflinching honesty. This foundation proved instrumental in shaping his later approach to global production. Rather than surrendering his cultural identity for broader commercial appeal, Leshem has continually drawn upon his Israeli perspective as a creative asset, proving that profoundly rooted narratives possess universal resonance. His trajectory demonstrates that the most captivating worldwide programming often emerges not from diluting cultural identity, but from intensifying it.

The founding of Crossing Oceans, his production outfit headquartered in Los Angeles but working chiefly across worldwide territories, constitutes a conscious departure from conventional studio-led frameworks. Working alongside established creative allies Amit Cohen and Daniel Amsel, Leshem has constructed a slate intentionally crafted to foreground artistic integrity over commercially proven templates. His ongoing productions span Brazil, Australia, Europe, and France in collaboration with Iranian filmmakers—a creative and geographical range that would have seemed impossible in conventional television structures. This international presence represents far more than ambition; it’s a deliberate statement that the future of television drama lies in decentralised production ecosystems where regional expertise and global aspirations intersect.

The Euphoria Trend

The groundbreaking Israeli series that influenced Sam Levinson’s HBO adaptation became a cultural watershed moment, establishing definitively that non-English language drama could achieve remarkable worldwide commercial success. Leshem’s creation resonated so profoundly with audiences worldwide that it generated multiple international versions, each tailored to capture local cultural contexts whilst preserving the emotional depth and genuine emotional resonance of the original vision. This success significantly transformed market views about the commercial potential of international television. Studios and digital platforms that had traditionally overlooked international drama as niche content suddenly acknowledged the market potential of culturally distinct narratives executed with creative excellence.

The HBO adaptation emergence as the second most-watched series in the network’s history validated Leshem’s creative philosophy entirely. Rather than proving that international drama needed Americanisation to succeed, it illustrated the opposite: audiences desired the psychological complexity and cultural specificity that the Israeli version reflected. Levinson’s adaptation succeeded not by sanitising the source material but by preserving its fundamental boldness whilst adapting it for American sensibilities. This model—honourable reimagining rather than wholesale reimagining—has become more impactful in how global drama is approached, encouraging producers to seek authentic local voices rather than imposing standardised templates.

• Original Israeli series produced multiple international adaptations throughout different markets
• HBO adaptation achieved the network’s second-most popular series of all time
• Success established international drama could attain remarkable commercial and critical acclaim

Spanning Continents: Building a Global Production Network

Leshem’s production company, Crossing Oceans, constitutes a deliberate architectural response to the fragmentation of international TV production. Established in collaboration with CAA and based in Los Angeles, the company operates as a genuinely international enterprise rather than a Hollywood-centric operation that occasionally ventures abroad. Established alongside long-standing creative partners Amit Cohen and Daniel Amsel, Crossing Oceans serves as a creative hub where storytellers from diverse geographical and cultural backgrounds converge to create productions with genuinely global ambition. This structure allows Leshem to maintain artistic control whilst drawing upon the distinct production ecosystems, local knowledge, and creative talent pools that different territories offer, fundamentally challenging the notion that high-quality drama must emerge from traditional entertainment capitals.

The company’s existing slate demonstrates the extent of the international reach and the range of storytelling approaches it supports. Projects span continents and cultures, from Brazilian psychological dramas to European co-productions and collaborations with Iranian filmmakers, each bringing unique viewpoints and production approaches. Rather than applying a uniform creative framework across territories, Crossing Oceans functions as a facilitator of genuine regional storytellers working in partnership with international ambition. This approach generates productions that demonstrate both cultural specificity and universal emotional resonance, proving that truly global drama emerges not from homogenisation but from championing unique creative perspectives whilst connecting them across borders.

Working Together Across Continents

Crossing Oceans’ global collaborations illustrate how modern international television flourishes through authentic artistic partnership rather than conventional studio hierarchies. The partnership involving Iranian filmmakers on “Revolution” embodies this approach, offering perspectives and storytelling traditions that conventional industry approaches would typically overlook. By establishing these relationships as equal creative voices rather than external vendors, Leshem’s company creates projects strengthened by varied cultural insights and creative practices. This collaborative model questions traditional beliefs about the source of quality television, proving that excellence arises when diverse creative voices work together genuinely toward shared artistic vision.

The concurrent development of projects across Brazil, Australia, Europe, and France illustrates how Crossing Oceans operates as a genuinely distributed creative enterprise. Rather than concentrating control in Los Angeles, the company supports local production teams and creative partners to drive projects forward within their respective territories. This decentralised approach accelerates development timelines whilst maintaining productions reflect genuine cultural identity and local relevance. By treating different territories as collaborative partners rather than satellite offices, Crossing Oceans introduces a production model that values regional expertise whilst preserving the artistic standards and international perspective necessary for global commercial success.

Empathy at the Heart of Our Mission

At the heart of Leshem’s perspective for international storytelling lies a core conviction in television’s ability to foster empathy across cultural divides. Rather than approaching global narratives as a business approach or budgetary convenience, he positions it as a ethical necessity—a medium through which audiences across the globe can inhabit unfamiliar perspectives and gain greater insight of different societies. This philosophical framework elevates global drama beyond entertainment into something more consequential: a tool for bridging the psychological distances that divide different populations. By centring empathy as the central principle, Leshem argues that television can accomplish what political discourse often cannot: creating genuine human connection across cultural divides.

The growth of locally created content on global streaming platforms has paradoxically created both opportunities and challenges. Whilst audiences now encounter stories from historically underrepresented territories, there persists a danger of regarding such works as cultural oddities rather than stories of shared human experience. Leshem’s insistence on empathy-driven storytelling directly challenges this performative representation. His projects intentionally resist reductive stereotypes or superficial representation, instead constructing stories that expose the shared vulnerabilities, ambitions, and ethical dilemmas that bind humanity. This approach converts audiences into authentic stakeholders in other people’s emotional landscapes, nurturing the kind of cross-cultural understanding that has become increasingly vital in an interconnected yet polarised world.

• Timeless human narratives go beyond cultural and geographical boundaries
• Empathy-driven storytelling prevents exoticizing of international productions
• Shared emotional experiences foster genuine intercultural understanding
• Television’s power lies in making faraway lives feel intimately close

Dramatic Performance as a Tool for Learning

Television drama, when crafted with genuine creative vision, functions as a uniquely powerful medium for fostering understanding. Unlike documentary approaches that preserve a detached perspective, drama draws audiences into the inner emotional lives of characters whose situations may diverge radically from their own. This immersive quality allows viewers to enter unfamiliar social environments, familial arrangements, and moral dilemmas with an closeness that generates understanding rather than superficial knowledge. Leshem’s work consistently exploit this potential, constructing narratives that compel audiences to confront their own assumptions whilst recognising the core humanity in characters whose circumstances initially seem alien or incomprehensible.

The effectiveness of this approach becomes especially evident in programmes addressing conflict, trauma, and social division. Series like “Valley of Tears” and “No Man’s Land” intentionally situate spectators within conflicted areas and divided societies, demanding that spectators navigate moral uncertainty without straightforward conclusions. Rather than offering reassuring narratives of success or redemption, these programmes present the complex, nuanced reality of how individuals endure and sometimes thrive within insurmountable conditions. By resisting oversimplification, Leshem’s work teaches spectators that understanding needn’t demand agreement—it requires only the willingness to genuinely listen with stories profoundly distinct from one’s own.

What Drives a Series Gain Traction

In an era saturated with content, the distinction between programmes that merely exist and those that truly connect hinges on a readiness to take creative risks. Leshem argues that global drama’s greatest asset lies not in its financial limitations but in its potential to venture into dramatic space that cautious American television increasingly avoids. When streaming companies prioritise algorithmic formulas over artistic surprise, standalone creators operating across continents possess the liberty to pursue stories that genuinely unsettle and push audiences. This fearlessness—the unwillingness to sand down rough edges for palatability—transforms television from mere entertainment into something far more impactful: a medium capable of expanding consciousness.

The international works that gain widespread market traction invariably exhibit an steadfast dedication to their original material’s emotional and cultural authenticity. “Euphoria’s” original Israeli iteration prospered not because it catered to American sensibilities but because it proved deeply faithful to its specific milieu, ultimately establishing that particularity rather than universal blandness creates genuine broad appeal. Leshem’s current slate of endeavours—from “Paranoia” in Brazil to collaborations with Iranian directors—embodies this belief that the most globally compelling narrative work develops when storytellers prioritise their artistic vision’s honesty over structural pressure to homogenise. Such artistic bravery, paradoxically, functions as the pathway to international widespread recognition.

• Authentic storytelling grounded in distinct cultural settings appeals across audiences
• Creative risk-taking sets apart memorable television from disposable programming
• Refusing commercial compromise often yields stronger financial returns
• Global drama thrives when creative direction supersedes algorithmic predictability