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 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”—contended forcefully that independent creators and cross-border narratives hold the key to reinvigorating dramatic television. As streaming services progressively focus on local-focused content 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 belief comes at a pivotal juncture when international drama risks being reduced to little more than a budget solution or exotic niche rather than a transformative medium reshaping the medium.

The Case for Courageous, Convention-Challenging Narrative Craft

Leshem’s central argument contests the widespread timidity in current television. Rather than retreating into safe formulas, he contends that worldwide television offers something the industry urgently requires: real unpredictability. When networks and streaming services play it safe, approving only proven templates and familiar narratives, they relinquish the format’s essential ability to captivate and provoke. Leshem believes this moment demands the contrasting direction—creators must welcome the unconventional, explore untested territories, and believe in audiences to go along into challenging new territory. The Israeli original “Euphoria” embodied this approach, delivering authentic intensity and local cultural character to a story that transcended its roots to become a international hit.

The economics of worldwide production, Leshem stresses, genuinely free rather than constrain creative ambition. Whilst American television continually requires substantial financial investment to justify green-light verdicts, international productions can achieve similar quality standards at significantly lower expense. This monetary freedom somewhat counterintuitively allows increased artistic experimentation. Producers working across borders and cultures aren’t constrained by the same market demands that force American networks toward lowest-common-denominator storytelling. Instead, they can support distinctive voices, non-traditional storytelling, and the kind of bold experimentation that eventually generates the most enduring and culturally important content.

• Global narratives opens doors to fresh settings, setups and dramatic trajectories
• Independent production companies can deliver quality programming at substantially lower costs
• International content engages audiences tired of formulaic television
• Cultural specificity establishes authenticity that surpasses geographical boundaries

Disrupting the Established Formula

The television industry’s present risk aversion constitutes a fundamental misreading of audience appetite. 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, ethically nuanced, and culturally rooted. Global drama, by its very nature, resists the homogenising impulse that dominates mainstream American television. When creators operate within different cultural contexts and production ecosystems, they’re forced to approach things anew, to challenge conventions, to move past the well-worn paths that have become entrenched as industry convention.

Leshem’s own production company, Crossing Oceans, reflects this approach through its deliberately international slate. From “Paranoia” in Brazil to “Revolution,” a France Télévisions collaboration with Iranian filmmakers, his projects intentionally pursue creative friction and cross-cultural exchange. These aren’t vanity productions designed to accumulate festival laurels; they’re calculated bets that audiences worldwide crave stories that provoke, disorient, and ultimately reshape them. By welcoming 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 Foundations to Global Aspirations

Ron Leshem’s journey from Israeli television to global recognition exemplifies the profound impact of locally-rooted storytelling. His early work in Israeli drama marked him as a unique artistic perspective, willing to confront complex moral and social themes with candid directness. This groundwork became crucial in shaping his future direction to international filmmaking. Rather than setting aside his cultural distinctiveness for wider market reach, Leshem has repeatedly utilised his Israeli perspective as a creative asset, proving that deeply local stories possess global relevance. His trajectory demonstrates that the most compelling international television often emerges not from weakening cultural distinctiveness, but from deepening commitment to it.

The establishment of Crossing Oceans, his production outfit headquartered in Los Angeles but working chiefly across global markets, represents a deliberate rejection from traditional Hollywood production approaches. Working alongside longtime collaborators Amit Cohen and Daniel Amsel, Leshem has developed a portfolio deliberately designed to prioritise artistic integrity over market-tested formulas. His active ventures span Brazil, Australia, Europe, and France in partnership with Iranian filmmakers—a geographical and creative diversity that would have seemed impossible in traditional television hierarchies. This global footprint isn’t merely ambitious; it’s a deliberate statement that the direction of television storytelling lies in dispersed creative systems where ground-level understanding and worldwide vision intersect.

The Euphoria Effect

The groundbreaking Israeli series that influenced Sam Levinson’s HBO adaptation became a defining cultural moment, establishing definitively that non-English language drama could achieve remarkable worldwide commercial success. Leshem’s creation struck such a powerful chord with audiences worldwide that it produced countless international versions, each tailored to capture regional cultural nuances whilst maintaining the emotional depth and emotional authenticity of the original vision. This success dramatically shifted market views about the commercial potential of international television. Studios and streaming services that had earlier rejected international drama as limited market appeal suddenly recognised the commercial opportunity of culturally specific storytelling executed with artistic integrity.

The HBO adaptation emergence as 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 showed 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 rendering it for American sensibilities. This model—faithful reworking rather than wholesale reimagining—has become growing in importance in how global drama is approached, prompting producers to seek authentic local voices rather than imposing standardised templates.

• Original Israeli series produced multiple international adaptations throughout different markets
• HBO adaptation rose to the network’s second-most popular series in history
• Success proved cross-border television drama could achieve unparalleled commercial and critical acclaim

Building Global Networks: Creating Worldwide Production Operations

Leshem’s production outfit, Crossing Oceans, represents 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. Co-founded with long-standing creative partners Amit Cohen and Daniel Amsel, Crossing Oceans functions as a creative centre where creators with varied geographical and cultural perspectives converge to create productions with truly international scope. This framework allows Leshem to maintain artistic control whilst drawing upon the unique production environments, regional expertise, and pools of creative talent that different territories provide, directly contesting the notion that high-quality drama must emerge from established entertainment hubs.

The company’s existing slate 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 co-productions and collaborations with Iranian filmmakers, each bringing unique viewpoints and production approaches. Rather than imposing a standardised creative template across territories, Crossing Oceans functions as a facilitator of genuine regional storytellers working in partnership with international ambition. This approach produces productions that possess both cultural specificity and universal emotional resonance, proving that truly global drama emerges not from homogenisation but from celebrating distinctive creative visions whilst linking them internationally.

Collaboration Across Different Continents

Crossing Oceans’ international partnerships illustrate how current world drama succeeds through real creative teamwork rather than traditional top-down production models. The collaboration with Iranian filmmakers on “Revolution” reflects this philosophy, introducing viewpoints and narrative approaches that traditional Western studios would commonly ignore. By positioning these partnerships as creative equals rather than subcontractors, Leshem’s company produces works enhanced through varied cultural insights and cultural approaches. This collaborative model challenges outdated assumptions about the source of quality television, establishing that creativity develops when diverse creative voices work together genuinely toward common creative goals.

The concurrent development of projects across Brazil, Australia, Europe, and France illustrates how Crossing Oceans operates as a authentically 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 speeds up production schedules whilst ensuring productions preserve local character and local relevance. By treating different territories as equal creative contributors rather than satellite offices, Crossing Oceans establishes a production model that honours local insight whilst upholding the artistic standards and international perspective necessary 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 ability to cultivate understanding across cultural boundaries. Rather than approaching global narratives as a commercial strategy or financial expediency, he positions it as a ethical necessity—a medium through which audiences worldwide can engage with different viewpoints and gain greater insight of distinct cultures. This philosophical framework elevates global drama beyond mere 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 achieve what political discussion frequently fails to do: creating genuine human connection across cultural divides.

The expansion of locally produced content on international streaming platforms has somewhat counterintuitively created both opportunity and risk. Whilst audiences now access stories from historically underrepresented territories, there persists a danger of treating such productions as exotic curiosities rather than universal human narratives. Leshem’s commitment to emotionally intelligent narrative directly challenges this performative representation. His projects deliberately avoid cultural stereotyping or superficial representation, instead constructing stories that reveal the shared vulnerabilities, ambitions, and moral complexities that bind humanity. This approach converts audiences into genuine participants in other people’s emotional landscapes, cultivating the form of intercultural comprehension that has become ever more essential in an digitally connected but deeply divided world.

• Universal human narratives go beyond geographical and cultural boundaries
• Empathy-based narrative prevents exoticizing of international productions
• Common emotional experiences create genuine intercultural understanding
• Television’s strength lies in making faraway lives feel intimately familiar

Theatre as a Tool for Understanding

Television drama, when crafted with genuine artistic ambition, operates as a uniquely powerful medium for building empathy. Unlike documentary formats that maintain observational distance, drama invites audiences into the subjective emotional experiences of characters whose circumstances may differ radically from their own. This immersive nature enables viewers to inhabit unfamiliar social contexts, familial arrangements, and moral dilemmas with an depth that creates understanding rather than simple awareness. Leshem’s productions consistently leverage this strength, creating narratives that push audiences to face their own assumptions whilst acknowledging the fundamental humanity in characters whose circumstances initially seem strange or perplexing.

The impact of this method becomes notably evident in works addressing conflict, trauma, and community fragmentation. Series like “Valley of Tears” and “No Man’s Land” purposefully situate viewers within contested territories and fractured communities, demanding that audiences navigate ethical complexity without simple answers. Rather than providing reassuring narratives of triumph or redemption, these series present the complex, nuanced reality of how communities endure and sometimes thrive within impossible circumstances. By resisting oversimplification, Leshem’s work demonstrates audiences that insight needn’t demand agreement—it requires only the openness to genuinely listen with stories markedly unlike one’s own.

What Makes a Series Achieve Success

In an era brimming with content, the dividing line between programmes that merely exist and those that genuinely resonate hinges on a commitment to take creative risks. Leshem argues that international drama’s greatest asset lies not in its financial limitations but in its potential to venture into narrative territory that risk-averse American television increasingly avoids. When streaming platforms emphasise algorithmic predictability over artistic surprise, freelance production companies operating across continents possess the freedom to pursue stories that truly disturb and test audiences. This fearlessness—the resistance to sand down rough edges for mass appeal—transforms television from background viewing into something far more impactful: a medium equipped to deepening understanding.

The international productions that break through commercially invariably exhibit an unwavering fidelity to their source material’s cultural and emotional authenticity. “Euphoria’s” original Israeli iteration thrived not because it chased American preferences but because it stayed deeply faithful to its particular setting, ultimately establishing that specificity rather than universal blandness produces genuine broad appeal. Leshem’s present collection of endeavours—from “Paranoia” in Brazil to creative ventures with Iranian creative practitioners—embodies this belief that the most internationally engaging storytelling emerges when creators prioritise their vision’s integrity over institutional pressure to dilute distinctiveness. Such boldness, paradoxically, functions as the route to international commercial success.

• Genuine storytelling rooted in distinct cultural settings appeals across audiences
• Creative risk-taking sets apart compelling shows from forgettable content
• Refusing market pressures often yields stronger financial returns
• International television thrives when creative direction supersedes formulaic patterns