One Tribe TV examines English Civil War for Arte

Regional indie One Tribe TV is prepping a documentary about the English Civil War and its fallout for Arte.

A Kingdom in Chaos (2 x 60-minutes/1 x 90-minutes) fuses dramatic reconstruction with expert testimony to document the rise and fall of Charles I, Oliver Cromwell’s bloody conquest of Ireland, the short-lived English Republic and the dramatic return of Charles II. Against this backdrop, it also charts the impact across Europe, from the witch trials of the 1640s to the stirrings of revolution in France a century later.

The doc, which has received substantial backing from Blue Ant Studios, also asks whether the legacy of the Stuarts’ struggle for divine power and the shadow of revolution still shape the monarchy today.

A Kingdom in Chaos was commissioned by Peter Allenbacher at ZDF for German-French cultural channel Arte, and Lilla Hurst at Blue Ant Studios. It is exec produced by Owen Gay from One Tribe, with Mimi Templar-Gay producing and directing.

Blue Ant Rights is handling international distribution on the doc.

Gay said: “This is history at its most visceral: bloody battles, daring escapes, merciless revenge, and seismic political upheaval. But it’s also a story with urgent modern resonance.

“As England crowns a new King Charles, A Kingdom in Chaos explores what lessons history still has to teach us about power, leadership, and belief.”

Allenbacher added: “In modern times, people cannot imagine what it meant to an ordinary 17th-century citizen to condemn to death – and decapitate – their God-appointed king.

“Neither could, at this time, Charles’ I, fellow kings and queens on their thrones high above the scaffold.”