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 juggernaut “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”—argued passionately that independent producers and international storytelling hold the key to revitalising television drama. As streaming platforms increasingly retreat into domestically-oriented programming and broadcasters take conservative approaches, Leshem remains bullishly optimistic 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 Bold, Boundary-Pushing Story Creation

Leshem’s primary argument questions the widespread timidity in current television. Rather than retreating into formulaic comfort, he maintains that global drama offers something the industry urgently requires: real unpredictability. When networks and streaming services stick to proven models, commissioning only proven templates and familiar narratives, they relinquish the format’s essential ability to captivate and provoke. Leshem believes this juncture demands the opposite approach—creators must embrace the untested, push into uncharted ground, and believe in audiences to go along into unfamiliar and unsettling ground. The Israeli original “Euphoria” demonstrated this principle, introducing genuine rawness and cultural specificity to a tale that transcended its roots to become a global phenomenon.

The economics of worldwide production, Leshem stresses, actually liberate rather than constrain artistic vision. Whilst American television persistently calls for considerable spending to justify greenlight decisions, international productions can achieve similar quality standards at reduced financial outlay. This financial flexibility surprisingly facilitates increased artistic experimentation. Creators operating in international settings don’t face the same market demands that force American networks toward lowest-common-denominator storytelling. Instead, they can support original viewpoints, unconventional narratives, and the kind of ambitious creative risk that ultimately produces the most enduring and culturally important content.

• Global storytelling opens doors to fresh settings, frameworks and story arcs
• Independent creators can deliver high-end drama at significantly reduced costs
• International narratives appeals to audiences weary of conventional TV
• Cultural distinctiveness generates credibility that transcends geographical boundaries

Breaking the Established Formula

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, leading to an endless parade of rehashed content and franchises. Yet audiences continue gravitating toward programmes that surprise them—narratives that feel genuinely dangerous, ethically nuanced, and culturally grounded. Global drama, by its inherent character, resists the homogenising impulse that dominates mainstream American television. When creators work across different cultural contexts and production ecosystems, they’re forced to think differently, to question assumptions, to venture beyond the well-worn paths that have calcified into industry convention.

Leshem’s own production company, Crossing Oceans, embodies this approach through its intentionally global portfolio. From “Paranoia” in Brazil to “Revolution,” a France Télévisions partnership with Iranian filmmakers, his projects deliberately pursue artistic tension and cultural collision. These are not vanity productions designed to accumulate festival laurels; they’re calculated bets that audiences globally crave stories that provoke, unsettle, and ultimately reshape them. By embracing the unknown rather than shying away from it, Leshem suggests, television can reclaim its position as the medium where real creative risk still matters.

From Israeli Foundations to International Goals

Ron Leshem’s journey from Israeli television to worldwide success exemplifies the far-reaching influence of stories deeply embedded in place. His foundational creations in Israeli drama positioned him as a distinctive creative voice, unafraid to tackle intricate ethical and cultural questions with unflinching honesty. This groundwork became crucial in shaping his subsequent methodology to worldwide content creation. Rather than abandoning his cultural specificity for expanded commercial viability, Leshem has consistently leveraged his Israeli perspective as a storytelling strength, proving that profoundly rooted narratives possess worldwide appeal. His trajectory illustrates that the most compelling international television often emerges not from diminishing cultural specificity, but from intensifying it.

The creation of Crossing Oceans, his production company based in Los Angeles but operating primarily across international markets, represents a conscious departure from Hollywood-centric production models. Working alongside longtime collaborators Amit Cohen and Daniel Amsel, Leshem has built a portfolio intentionally crafted to foreground creative authenticity over market-tested formulas. His active ventures span Brazil, Australia, Europe, and France in partnership with Iranian filmmakers—a thematic and territorial range that would have seemed impossible in conventional television structures. This international presence isn’t merely ambitious; it’s a calculated claim that the trajectory of dramatic television lies in distributed production networks where ground-level understanding and global aspirations intersect.

The Euphoria Trend

The groundbreaking Israeli series that inspired Sam Levinson’s HBO adaptation became a defining cultural moment, demonstrating conclusively that international drama could achieve extraordinary international box office success. Leshem’s creation struck such a powerful chord with audiences worldwide that it produced countless international versions, each adapted to reflect regional cultural nuances whilst preserving the psychological intensity and emotional authenticity of the original vision. This success dramatically shifted professional attitudes about international television’s commercial viability. Studios and digital platforms that had traditionally overlooked non-English language drama as niche content suddenly recognised the commercial opportunity of culturally specific storytelling executed with artistic integrity.

The HBO adaptation rise to the second most-watched series in the network’s history validated Leshem’s creative philosophy thoroughly. Rather than proving that international drama needed Americanisation to succeed, it demonstrated the opposite: audiences sought the psychological complexity and cultural specificity that the Israeli version captured. Levinson’s adaptation succeeded not by sanitising the source material but by honouring 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, motivating producers to seek authentic local voices rather than imposing standardised templates.

• Original Israeli series spawned multiple international adaptations across different territories
• HBO adaptation rose to network’s second most-watched series of all time
• Success proved international drama could attain unprecedented commercial and critical acclaim

Crossing Oceans: Creating Worldwide Production Operations

Leshem’s production company, Crossing Oceans, constitutes a deliberate architectural response to the fragmentation of international TV production. Founded in collaboration with CAA and headquartered in Los Angeles, the company operates as a truly global enterprise rather than a Hollywood-centric operation that occasionally ventures abroad. Established alongside long-standing creative partners Amit Cohen and Daniel Amsel, Crossing Oceans functions as a creative hub where creators with varied geographical and cultural perspectives converge to create productions with genuinely global ambition. This framework allows Leshem to maintain artistic control whilst leveraging the unique production environments, regional expertise, and pools of creative talent that different territories offer, fundamentally challenging the notion that quality drama must originate 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 co-productions and collaborations with Iranian filmmakers, each bringing distinct perspectives and production methodologies. Rather than applying a uniform creative framework across territories, Crossing Oceans functions as a facilitator of genuine regional storytellers 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 connecting them across borders.

Working Together Across Continents

Crossing Oceans’ international partnerships illustrate how contemporary global drama succeeds through real creative teamwork rather than traditional top-down production models. The collaboration with Iranian filmmakers on “Revolution” embodies this principle, bringing viewpoints and narrative approaches that traditional Western studios would commonly ignore. By establishing these relationships as equal creative voices rather than subcontractors, Leshem’s company creates projects strengthened by multiple cultural viewpoints and artistic traditions. This partnership approach questions traditional beliefs about which regions produce quality drama, demonstrating that excellence arises when multiple creative talents collaborate authentically toward common creative goals.

The parallel development of projects across Brazil, Australia, Europe, and France showcases how Crossing Oceans operates as a truly distributed creative enterprise. Rather than concentrating control in Los Angeles, the company empowers local production teams and creative partners to advance initiatives within their respective territories. This locally-focused structure accelerates development timelines whilst guaranteeing productions maintain cultural authenticity and local relevance. By treating different territories as equal creative contributors rather than satellite offices, Crossing Oceans pioneers a production model that respects local knowledge whilst upholding 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 boundaries. Rather than approaching global narratives as a commercial strategy or budgetary convenience, he positions it as a moral imperative—a platform by which audiences worldwide can inhabit unfamiliar perspectives and gain greater insight of different societies. This philosophical framework elevates global drama beyond entertainment into something far more significant: a tool for bridging the emotional gaps that separate nations and communities. By centring empathy as the guiding principle, Leshem argues that television can accomplish what political discussion frequently fails to do: fostering authentic human bonds across difference.

The proliferation of locally created content on global streaming platforms has paradoxically created both opportunities and challenges. Whilst audiences now access stories from previously marginalised territories, there remains a danger of regarding such works as cultural oddities rather than universal human narratives. Leshem’s insistence on empathy-driven storytelling directly challenges this performative representation. His projects deliberately avoid reductive stereotypes or performative diversity, instead crafting narratives that expose the common fragilities, ambitions, and ethical dilemmas that bind humanity. This approach transforms viewers into genuine participants in the emotional worlds of others, nurturing the kind of cross-cultural understanding that has become ever more essential in an digitally connected but deeply divided world.

• Timeless human stories go beyond geographical and cultural boundaries
• Empathy-based narrative avoids exoticisation of international productions
• Common emotional experiences create authentic cross-cultural understanding
• Television’s power resides in making distant lives seem intimately familiar

Theatre as a Method for Comprehension

Television drama, when delivered with genuine creative vision, functions as a uniquely powerful medium for fostering understanding. Unlike documentary formats that preserve a detached perspective, drama pulls audiences into the inner emotional lives of characters whose situations may diverge substantially from their own. This immersive quality permits audiences to enter unfamiliar social environments, familial arrangements, and ethical quandaries with an intimacy that builds understanding rather than simple awareness. Leshem’s productions consistently exploit this potential, creating narratives that push audiences to confront their own assumptions whilst acknowledging the core humanity in characters whose circumstances initially seem alien or incomprehensible.

The impact of this strategy becomes notably evident in productions exploring conflict, trauma, and community fragmentation. Series like “Valley of Tears” and “No Man’s Land” purposefully situate spectators within conflicted areas and broken communities, demanding that audiences navigate ethical complexity without easy resolution. Rather than offering reassuring narratives of victory or salvation, these programmes present the complex, nuanced reality of how people endure and sometimes thrive within untenable situations. By resisting oversimplification, Leshem’s work teaches audiences that understanding doesn’t necessitate agreement—it requires only the readiness to authentically engage with stories profoundly distinct from one’s own.

What Drives a Series Gain Traction

In an era saturated with content, the dividing line between programmes that merely exist and those that authentically engage hinges on a readiness to take creative risks. Leshem argues that international drama’s greatest asset lies not in its production budgets but in its ability to venture into dramatic space that conservative American television increasingly avoids. When streaming companies prioritise algorithmic predictability over artistic surprise, standalone creators 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 palatability—transforms television from background viewing into something far more consequential: a medium equipped to broadening perspectives.

The international works that achieve commercial success invariably demonstrate an uncompromising commitment to their source material’s emotional and cultural authenticity. “Euphoria’s” Israeli original version thrived not because it pursued American preferences but because it remained fiercely true to its specific milieu, ultimately demonstrating that specificity rather than universal blandness produces genuine universality. Leshem’s existing portfolio of works—from “Paranoia” in Brazil to partnerships with Iranian filmmakers—demonstrates this conviction that the most internationally engaging storytelling develops when creators place emphasis on their creative vision’s authenticity over structural pressure to standardise. Such creative courage, paradoxically, becomes the route to international commercial success.

• Authentic storytelling grounded in specific cultural contexts appeals across audiences
• Creative bold choices distinguishes compelling shows from disposable programming
• Rejecting market pressures often yields stronger financial returns
• Global drama flourishes when artistic vision supersedes formulaic patterns