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

Ron Leshem, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter and creator of the Israeli series that inspired HBO’s cultural phenomenon “Euphoria,” has declared that television is moving into a golden age of international storytelling. Speaking at this year’s Canneseries festival, Leshem—whose credits include “Valley of Tears,” “No Man’s Land” and “Bad Boy”—contended forcefully that independent creators and cross-border narratives hold the key to reinvigorating dramatic television. As streaming platforms progressively focus on domestically-oriented programming and broadcasters take conservative approaches, Leshem stays firmly confident about the future, backed by his own slate of expansive global initiatives spanning Brazil, Australia, Europe and France. His belief comes at a pivotal juncture when global drama risks being reduced to merely a budget solution or exotic niche rather than a creative force transforming the medium.

The Case for Daring, Limit-Breaking Story Creation

Leshem’s central argument challenges the dominant risk-aversion in current television. Rather than retreating into formulaic comfort, he maintains that international storytelling offers something the industry critically demands: genuine surprise. When networks and streaming services play it safe, greenlighting only proven templates and familiar narratives, they forfeit the television’s fundamental power to captivate and provoke. Leshem believes this juncture demands the contrasting direction—creators must welcome the unconventional, push into uncharted ground, and trust audiences to accompany them into challenging new territory. The Israeli original “Euphoria” exemplified this philosophy, delivering raw authenticity and cultural distinctiveness to a tale that surpassed its beginnings to become a worldwide success.

The economics of international production, Leshem emphasises, genuinely free rather than constrain creative ambition. Whilst American television increasingly demands massive budgets to justify greenlight decisions, cross-border ventures can achieve equivalent production quality at reduced financial outlay. This financial flexibility paradoxically enables more adventurous creative choices. Production teams spanning multiple territories don’t face the same commercial pressures that force American networks toward formulaic narratives. Instead, they can support original viewpoints, non-traditional storytelling, and the kind of daring innovation that finally creates the most memorable and culturally significant television.

• Global narratives opens doors to fresh settings, scenarios and dramatic trajectories
• Independent creators can create quality programming at considerably decreased costs
• International storytelling engages audiences weary of standard programming
• Cultural distinctiveness generates authenticity that surpasses geographical boundaries

Challenging the Established Model

The television industry’s present risk aversion represents a fundamental misreading of viewer demand. Streaming services and traditional broadcasters have become fixated with metrics and algorithmic predictability, resulting in an endless parade of rehashed content and franchises. Yet audiences keep turning toward programmes that surprise them—narratives that feel genuinely dangerous, ethically nuanced, and culturally rooted. Global drama, by its inherent character, resists the standardising tendency that dominates mainstream American television. When creators operate within different cultural contexts and production ecosystems, they’re forced to think differently, to challenge conventions, to venture beyond the well-worn paths that have become entrenched as 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 deliberately court artistic tension and cultural collision. These are not prestige vanity projects designed to accumulate festival laurels; they’re calculated bets that audiences worldwide hunger for stories that provoke, unsettle, and eventually transform them. By welcoming the unknown rather than shying away from it, Leshem argues, television can reclaim its position as the platform where genuine artistic risk-taking still matters.

From Israeli Origins to International Goals

Ron Leshem’s journey from Israeli television to international prominence exemplifies the profound impact of stories deeply embedded in place. His initial projects in Israeli drama positioned him as a unique artistic perspective, unafraid to tackle intricate ethical and cultural questions with unflinching honesty. This groundwork became crucial in shaping his future direction to worldwide content creation. Rather than surrendering his cultural identity for wider market reach, Leshem has consistently leveraged his Israeli perspective as a artistic resource, proving that intensely localised tales possess worldwide appeal. His trajectory demonstrates that the most captivating worldwide programming often emerges not from diminishing cultural specificity, but from doubling down on it.

The founding of Crossing Oceans, his production company headquartered in Los Angeles but functioning mainly across international markets, constitutes a intentional move away from Hollywood-centric production models. Working alongside established creative allies Amit Cohen and Daniel Amsel, Leshem has built a collection intentionally crafted to prioritise genuine creativity over market-tested formulas. His active ventures span Brazil, Australia, Europe, and France in cooperation with Iranian filmmakers—a creative and geographical breadth that would have been inconceivable in conventional television structures. This global footprint represents far more than ambition; it’s a strategic assertion that the future of television drama lies in decentralised production ecosystems where regional expertise and international ambition intersect.

The Euphoria Effect

The groundbreaking Israeli series that influenced Sam Levinson’s HBO adaptation became a landmark cultural achievement, demonstrating conclusively that international drama could achieve extraordinary international box office success. Leshem’s creation resonated so profoundly with audiences worldwide that it produced countless international versions, each adapted to reflect local cultural contexts whilst maintaining the psychological intensity and emotional authenticity of the original vision. This success dramatically shifted market views about non-English television’s market prospects. Studios and digital platforms that had earlier rejected non-English language drama as limited market appeal suddenly recognised the market potential of culturally distinct narratives executed with artistic integrity.

The HBO adaptation ascent to become the second most-watched series in the network’s history confirmed Leshem’s creative philosophy thoroughly. Rather than proving that international drama needed Americanisation to succeed, it showed the opposite: audiences sought 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 growing in importance in how global drama is approached, encouraging producers to seek authentic local voices rather than imposing standardised templates.

• Original Israeli series spawned numerous cross-border adaptations in various regions
• HBO adaptation rose to the network’s second-most popular series in history
• Success demonstrated cross-border television drama could reach unprecedented commercial and critical acclaim

Building Global Networks: Building a Global Production Network

Leshem’s production outfit, Crossing Oceans, constitutes a carefully structured response to the fragmented nature of global television production. Founded in partnership with CAA and headquartered in Los Angeles, the company functions as a genuinely international enterprise rather than a Hollywood-centric operation that periodically expands overseas. Co-founded with longtime collaborators Amit Cohen and Daniel Amsel, Crossing Oceans serves as a creative hub where storytellers from diverse geographical and cultural backgrounds converge to develop projects with truly international scope. This framework allows Leshem to maintain artistic control whilst drawing upon the unique production environments, local knowledge, and pools of creative talent that different territories offer, directly contesting the idea that high-quality drama must originate from traditional entertainment capitals.

The company’s current portfolio demonstrates the breadth of its international reach and the diversity of storytelling approaches it supports. Projects span continents and cultures, from Brazilian psychological dramas to European collaborations and co-productions with Iranian filmmakers, each bringing unique viewpoints and production approaches. Rather than imposing a standardised creative template across territories, Crossing Oceans operates as a facilitator of authentic local voices working in collaboration 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 linking them internationally.

Working Together Throughout Continents

Crossing Oceans’ international partnerships illustrate how current world drama thrives through real creative teamwork rather than hierarchical production structures. The collaboration with Iranian filmmakers on “Revolution” embodies this approach, offering creative insights and cultural narratives that Western-centric production models would generally dismiss. By establishing these relationships as equal creative voices rather than service providers, Leshem’s company generates works enhanced through diverse perspectives and artistic traditions. This teamwork structure challenges outdated assumptions about where quality drama originates, establishing that innovation emerges when diverse creative voices work in genuine partnership toward common creative goals.

The parallel development of projects across Brazil, Australia, Europe, and France illustrates how Crossing Oceans operates as a authentically distributed creative enterprise. Rather than concentrating control in Los Angeles, the company empowers local production teams and creative partners to drive projects forward within their respective territories. This decentralised approach speeds up production schedules whilst guaranteeing productions preserve local character and local relevance. By treating different territories as creative equals rather than satellite offices, Crossing Oceans introduces a production model that values regional expertise whilst maintaining the artistic standards and international perspective required for global commercial success.

Making Empathy Our Primary Focus

At the heart of Leshem’s perspective for global drama lies a core conviction in television’s capacity to cultivate understanding across cultural boundaries. Rather than treating international storytelling as a commercial strategy or financial expediency, he positions it as a moral imperative—a medium through which audiences across the globe can engage with different viewpoints and develop deeper understanding of distinct cultures. This conceptual approach raises international storytelling beyond entertainment into something far more significant: a tool for bridging the emotional gaps that divide different populations. By centring empathy as the guiding principle, Leshem argues that television can accomplish what political discourse often cannot: fostering authentic human bonds across difference.

The growth of locally produced content on global streaming platforms has paradoxically created both opportunity and risk. Whilst audiences now encounter stories from historically underrepresented territories, there persists a danger of regarding such works as exotic curiosities rather than universal human narratives. Leshem’s commitment to emotionally intelligent narrative directly challenges this performative representation. His projects intentionally resist reductive stereotypes or performative diversity, instead constructing stories that expose the shared vulnerabilities, ambitions, and moral complexities that bind humanity. This method converts audiences into genuine participants in the emotional worlds of others, cultivating the kind of cross-cultural understanding that has become increasingly vital in an interconnected yet polarised world.

• Timeless human stories transcend geographical and cultural boundaries
• Empathy-based storytelling avoids exoticisation of foreign productions
• Common emotional moments foster genuine cross-cultural understanding
• Television’s strength resides in making faraway lives seem intimately close

Theatre as a Method for Comprehension

Television drama, when crafted with genuine creative vision, serves as a uniquely powerful medium for building empathy. Unlike documentary approaches that maintain observational distance, drama invites audiences into the subjective emotional experiences of characters whose situations may diverge substantially from their own. This immersive nature permits audiences to occupy unfamiliar social environments, familial arrangements, and ethical quandaries with an intimacy that builds understanding rather than mere awareness. Leshem’s output regularly exploit this potential, building stories that force audiences to face their own assumptions whilst acknowledging the core humanity in characters whose existences initially appear strange or perplexing.

The effectiveness of this strategy becomes notably evident in productions addressing conflict, trauma, and community fragmentation. Series like “Valley of Tears” and “No Man’s Land” deliberately situate spectators within conflicted areas and fractured communities, demanding that spectators navigate moral uncertainty without easy resolution. Rather than delivering soothing accounts of victory or salvation, these programmes present the intricate, messy reality of how people endure and sometimes thrive within insurmountable conditions. By rejecting reduction, Leshem’s work demonstrates spectators that comprehension doesn’t necessitate agreement—it requires only the readiness to genuinely listen with stories profoundly distinct from one’s own.

What Makes a Series Gain Traction

In an era saturated with content, the difference between programmes that merely exist and those that authentically engage hinges on a commitment to take bold creative steps. Leshem argues that global drama’s greatest asset lies not in its financial limitations but in its capacity to venture into dramatic space that conservative American television increasingly avoids. When streaming companies emphasise algorithmic predictability over creative innovation, independent producers operating across continents possess the liberty to pursue stories that genuinely unsettle and challenge audiences. This fearlessness—the unwillingness to sand down rough edges for mass appeal—transforms television from mere entertainment into something far more significant: a medium able to deepening understanding.

The international works that break through commercially invariably demonstrate an steadfast commitment to their original material’s emotional and cultural authenticity. “Euphoria’s” Israeli original version prospered not because it chased American tastes but because it remained firmly committed to its own context, ultimately demonstrating that specificity rather than broad genericness generates genuine broad appeal. Leshem’s present collection of projects—from “Paranoia” in Brazil to collaborations with Iranian creative practitioners—embodies this certainty that the most widely captivating narrative work arises when storytellers place emphasis on their creative vision’s authenticity over organisational demands to standardise. Such creative courage, paradoxically, functions as the means of achieving international success.

• Genuine storytelling rooted in distinct cultural settings appeals across audiences
• Creative bold choices distinguishes memorable television from forgettable content
• Rejecting commercial compromise often yields greater commercial success
• Global drama thrives when artistic vision supersedes algorithmic predictability