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

Ron Leshem, the Oscar-nominated writer and co-creator of the Israeli series that inspired HBO’s cultural phenomenon “Euphoria,” has stated that television is entering a golden age of global drama. 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 producers and international storytelling hold the key to revitalising television drama. As streaming services increasingly retreat into local-focused content and broadcasters play it safe, Leshem stays firmly confident about the future, backed by his own collection of ambitious international projects spanning Brazil, Australia, Europe and France. His conviction comes at a critical moment when international drama risks being reduced to little more than a cost-effective option or exotic niche rather than a creative force transforming the medium.

The Case for Daring, Limit-Breaking Narrative Craft

Leshem’s primary argument challenges the prevailing timidity in contemporary television. Rather than falling back on safe formulas, he argues that international storytelling offers something the industry urgently requires: authentic originality. When networks and streaming services avoid taking risks, greenlighting only proven templates and familiar narratives, they surrender the medium’s essential ability to captivate and provoke. Leshem believes this moment demands the contrasting direction—creators must adopt the unfamiliar, venture into new spaces, and have faith in viewers to go along into uncomfortable, unexpected places. The original Israeli “Euphoria” embodied this philosophy, introducing genuine rawness and cultural specificity to a tale that went beyond its beginnings to become a international hit.

The economics of international production, Leshem emphasises, genuinely free rather than constrain creative ambition. Whilst American television continually requires substantial financial investment to justify production approvals, international productions can achieve equivalent production quality at a fraction of the cost. This monetary freedom paradoxically enables greater creative risk-taking. Production teams spanning multiple territories don’t face the same business imperatives that force American networks toward safe, accessible content. Instead, they can invest in distinctive voices, experimental story structures, and the kind of ambitious creative risk that finally creates the most impactful and culturally relevant programming.

• Global storytelling opens doors to new worlds, setups and dramatic trajectories
• Independent production companies can produce quality programming at substantially lower costs
• International narratives appeals to audiences weary of conventional TV
• Cultural particularity establishes genuine appeal that goes beyond geographical boundaries

Disrupting the Safe Approach

The television industry’s current risk aversion constitutes a fundamental misreading of viewer demand. Streaming services and traditional broadcasters have grown obsessed with metrics and algorithmic predictability, resulting in an endless parade of rehashed content and franchises. Yet audiences continue gravitating toward programmes that surprise them—narratives that feel truly transgressive, morally complex, and culturally grounded. Global drama, by its inherent character, resists the homogenising impulse that dominates mainstream American television. When creators operate within different cultural contexts and production ecosystems, they’re forced to think differently, to question assumptions, to venture beyond the well-worn paths that have become entrenched as industry convention.

Leshem’s personal production company, Crossing Oceans, embodies this philosophy through its intentionally international slate. From “Paranoia” in Brazil to “Revolution,” a France Télévisions collaboration with Iranian filmmakers, his projects intentionally court artistic tension and cross-cultural exchange. These are not prestige vanity projects intended to gather festival laurels; they’re calculated bets that audiences globally hunger for stories that provoke, unsettle, and ultimately transform them. By embracing the unfamiliar rather than shying away from it, Leshem argues, television can restore its standing as the platform where real creative risk still counts.

From Israeli Origins to International Goals

Ron Leshem’s progression from Israeli television to global recognition exemplifies the profound impact of stories deeply embedded in place. His foundational creations in Israeli drama marked him as a distinctive creative voice, unafraid to tackle complex moral and social themes with uncompromising integrity. This groundwork became crucial in shaping his subsequent methodology to international filmmaking. Rather than abandoning his cultural specificity for expanded commercial viability, Leshem has continually drawn upon his Israeli perspective as a creative asset, proving that intensely localised tales possess worldwide appeal. His trajectory illustrates that the most compelling international television often emerges not from diluting cultural identity, but from doubling down on it.

The establishment of Crossing Oceans, his production company based in Los Angeles but working chiefly across international markets, constitutes a intentional move away from Hollywood-centric production models. Collaborating with established creative allies Amit Cohen and Daniel Amsel, Leshem has developed a portfolio strategically created to prioritise genuine creativity over market-tested formulas. His active ventures span Brazil, Australia, Europe, and France in collaboration with Iranian filmmakers—a thematic and territorial range that would have been unimaginable in established industry frameworks. 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 ground-level understanding and international ambition intersect.

The Euphoria Phenomenon

The original Israeli series that influenced Sam Levinson’s HBO adaptation became a landmark cultural achievement, establishing definitively that international drama could achieve remarkable worldwide commercial success. Leshem’s creation struck such a powerful chord with audiences worldwide that it generated multiple international versions, each tailored to capture local cultural contexts whilst maintaining the psychological intensity and emotional authenticity of the original vision. This success fundamentally altered industry perceptions about international television’s commercial viability. Studios and digital platforms that had previously dismissed non-English language drama as specialised programming suddenly recognised the market potential of culturally specific storytelling executed with creative excellence.

The HBO version ascent to become the second most-watched series in the network’s history confirmed Leshem’s creative philosophy entirely. Rather than proving that international drama needed Americanisation to succeed, it illustrated the opposite: audiences craved 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 translating it for American sensibilities. This model—respectful adaptation rather than wholesale reimagining—has become growing in importance in how global drama is approached, motivating producers to seek authentic local voices rather than imposing standardised templates.

• Original Israeli series generated numerous cross-border adaptations throughout different markets
• HBO adaptation achieved the network’s second-most popular series of all time
• Success demonstrated cross-border television drama could reach remarkable commercial and critical acclaim

Spanning Continents: Creating Worldwide Production Operations

Leshem’s production company, Crossing Oceans, constitutes a carefully structured response to the fragmentation of global television production. Established in partnership with CAA and headquartered in Los Angeles, the company functions as a genuinely international enterprise rather than a Hollywood-focused venture that occasionally ventures abroad. Established alongside longtime collaborators Amit Cohen and Daniel Amsel, Crossing Oceans functions as a creative hub where storytellers from diverse geographical and cultural backgrounds gather to create productions with truly international scope. This framework allows Leshem to maintain artistic control whilst drawing upon the distinct production ecosystems, local knowledge, and pools of creative talent that various regions offer, fundamentally challenging the idea that high-quality drama must emerge from established entertainment hubs.

The company’s existing slate demonstrates the breadth of its international reach and the range of storytelling approaches it champions. Projects stretch across 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 applying a uniform creative framework across territories, Crossing Oceans functions as a facilitator of authentic local voices working in partnership with international ambition. This approach generates productions that possess 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.

Partnerships Across the Globe

Crossing Oceans’ cross-border partnerships illustrate how contemporary global drama flourishes through genuine creative collaboration rather than hierarchical production structures. The partnership involving Iranian filmmakers on “Revolution” reflects this principle, bringing viewpoints and narrative approaches that traditional Western studios would generally dismiss. By treating these collaborations as artistic partners rather than service providers, Leshem’s company generates projects strengthened by varied cultural insights and cultural approaches. This teamwork structure questions outdated assumptions about where quality drama originates, demonstrating that excellence arises when diverse creative voices work together genuinely toward shared artistic vision.

The simultaneous development of projects across Brazil, Australia, Europe, and France demonstrates how Crossing Oceans operates as a genuinely distributed creative enterprise. Rather than centralising decision-making in Los Angeles, the company enables local production teams and creative partners to drive projects forward within their respective territories. This distributed model accelerates development timelines whilst ensuring productions maintain cultural authenticity and local relevance. By treating different territories as creative equals rather than satellite offices, Crossing Oceans establishes a production model that values regional expertise whilst upholding the artistic standards and international perspective essential to global commercial success.

Empathy as Our Central Purpose

At the heart of Leshem’s perspective for global drama lies a core conviction in television’s ability to foster empathy across cultural boundaries. Rather than treating international storytelling as a business approach or budgetary convenience, he positions it as a ethical necessity—a platform by which audiences worldwide can engage with different viewpoints and gain greater insight of different societies. This philosophical framework elevates global drama beyond entertainment into something more consequential: a means of closing the psychological distances that separate nations and communities. By placing empathy at the centre as the guiding principle, Leshem argues that television can accomplish what political discourse often cannot: fostering authentic human bonds across cultural divides.

The proliferation of locally produced content on international streaming platforms has paradoxically created both opportunities and challenges. Whilst audiences now access stories from historically underrepresented territories, there remains a danger of treating such productions as exotic curiosities rather than stories of shared human experience. Leshem’s commitment to empathy-driven storytelling directly counters this performative representation. His projects intentionally resist reductive stereotypes or performative diversity, instead constructing stories that reveal the common fragilities, ambitions, and ethical dilemmas that bind humanity. This approach transforms viewers into authentic stakeholders in the emotional worlds of others, fostering the kind of cross-cultural understanding that has become increasingly vital in an digitally connected but deeply divided world.

• Timeless human stories go beyond geographical and cultural boundaries
• Empathy-based storytelling avoids exoticizing of international productions
• Shared emotional moments create authentic intercultural understanding
• Television’s power lies in rendering distant lives feel intimately familiar

Dramatic Performance as a Means for Understanding

Television drama, when executed with genuine artistic ambition, functions as a uniquely powerful medium for cultivating empathy. Unlike documentary approaches that preserve a detached perspective, drama invites audiences into the subjective emotional experiences of characters whose circumstances may differ radically from their own. This immersive nature enables viewers to occupy unfamiliar social contexts, family structures, and ethical quandaries with an depth that creates understanding rather than mere awareness. Leshem’s output regularly exploit this potential, creating narratives that compel audiences to confront their own assumptions whilst acknowledging the core humanity in characters whose existences initially appear unfamiliar or bewildering.

The impact of this method becomes notably evident in works exploring conflict, trauma, and societal fracture. Series like “Valley of Tears” and “No Man’s Land” deliberately situate audiences within contested territories and divided societies, demanding that audiences navigate moral ambiguity without simple answers. Rather than providing soothing accounts of triumph or redemption, these programmes present the messy, complicated reality of how people endure and sometimes thrive within untenable situations. By refusing simplification, Leshem’s work demonstrates spectators that comprehension doesn’t require agreement—it requires only the readiness to truly hear with stories markedly unlike one’s own.

What Drives a Series Gain Traction

In an era brimming with content, the distinction between programmes that merely exist and those that authentically engage 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 storytelling ground that cautious American television increasingly avoids. When streaming platforms emphasise algorithmic predictability over artistic surprise, freelance production companies operating across continents possess the liberty to pursue stories that authentically provoke and challenge audiences. This fearlessness—the unwillingness to sand down rough edges for palatability—transforms television from passive entertainment into something far more consequential: a medium able to broadening perspectives.

The international productions that gain widespread market traction invariably share an unwavering fidelity to their source material’s emotional and cultural authenticity. “Euphoria’s” initial Israeli adaptation succeeded not because it chased American preferences but because it stayed deeply faithful to its particular setting, ultimately demonstrating that specificity rather than broad genericness generates genuine universality. Leshem’s existing portfolio of endeavours—from “Paranoia” in Brazil to creative ventures with Iranian filmmakers—embodies this belief that the most globally compelling storytelling emerges when storytellers place emphasis on their vision’s integrity over organisational demands to standardise. Such boldness, paradoxically, functions as the means of achieving international commercial success.

• Authentic storytelling rooted in distinct cultural settings resonates universally
• Creative bold choices distinguishes memorable television from forgettable content
• Rejecting market pressures frequently generates stronger financial returns
• International television flourishes when artistic vision overrides formulaic patterns