TV Fiction Jury Coordinator Thorsten Ritsch, Commissioning Editor, Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen - ZDF
'Everybody talks about a new golden age of fiction producing. The growing streaming and on-demand market is challenging the old players. On one hand, it can be frightening. Audiences have more possibilities to choose than ever before. On the other hand, for us as fiction producers, it brings the chance to tell stories in ways we did not dare to tell them just a few years ago.'
After studying journalism, Thorsten Ritsch realised that he prefers pure fictional storytelling over writing journalistic texts. So he got himself several almost unpaid internships on different film sets and learned about filmmaking and storytelling hands-on. Later, he worked as a junior producer for several production companies and became commissioning editor for German Television ZDF in 2006. Since then he is responsible for developing and producing TV movies and series, e.g. the PRIX EUROPA 2013 winner of Best European TV Fiction Series: ‘Generation War’.
In 2018 Thorsten Ritsch will again coordinate the TV Fiction Jury Group.