“Zero Motivation” stole the show at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival, where it took home top honors, and now the social satire is coming to TV.
Talya Lavie’s acclaimed directorial debut is being adapted into a series by BBC America. The TV rights for the project were snagged by two beloved leading ladies of the small-screen, Amy Poehler (“Parks and Recreation”) and Natasha Lyonne (“Orange is the New Black”). The pair caught the feature when it screened at Tribeca. The film — and the upcoming TV series — centers on women serving in the Israel Defense Forces.
Lavie will executive produce the series alongside Brooke Posch (“Broad City”) and Israeli producer Eilon Ratzkovsky (“Mermaids”).
“Ever since the film came out, we have received endless approaches from Israel and around the world about adapting it into just about every possible format,” Ratzkovsky revaled. “The connection with Amy and Natasha seems to us to be the best fit with the spirit of the movie.”
He hinted, “We are talking about a comedian and creator who I like a lot and it will be interesting to see what they do with the material.” The show is still in the early stages of development.
“During my mandatory military service as a secretary, I dreamed of making an army movie with the pathos and epic [scale] of classic war-films — but about the gray, mundane service that my friends and I experienced, where we hardly ever got up from our office chairs,” Lavie told Women and Hollywood. “I was inspired and amused by the idea of using envelopes, coffee cups, office intrigues, staple guns, and solitaire in order to create a female response to the Israeli male-dominated army film genre.”
“I think the film is very authentic, and people in Israel felt that it was made for
them, not made to ‘please’ foreign eyes,” Lavie explained. “The army experience for Israelis is, in a way, like college for Americans. We have quite a tradition of army films in Israel, but not so much about those pencil
pushers. So many people told me that the film was necessary for them, and that is my biggest award.”
