
Donna Sharpe is co-writing TROM, a Danish political/crime thriller series (6 x 54 for Viaplay Nordic, ZDF and the BBC, scheduled to shoot summer 2020). Prior to his, she co-wrote all six episodes of Berlin-set espionage drama WEST OF LIBERTY (6 x 45 for ZDF and SVT, 2019), as well as the pilot for Season 2 (in development). She was staff writer on all eight episodes of international crime/intelligence thriller THE TEAM S2 (8 x 60 for ZDF and DR Denmark, also screened on Netflix and C4’s Walter Presents, 2018–19). Donna has also written the season finale for contemporary German sad-com MAPA (8 x 30 for JOYN/RBB, shot autumn 2019, broadcast date tbc).
She is developing THE REVENGE TRILOGY of novels by bestselling South African crime writer Mike Nichol for the screen with Nadcon Films/ZDFE. She was awarded funding by the HAUS AM SEE Foundation and the FFA/German Federal Film Board (2018) for her feature film dramedy inspired by a real-life beauty pageant, MISS HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR, with co-writer Raquel Stern and Lupa Film. She was also awarded Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg High-End Drama Series Script Development Funding for her own original series (female-led contemporary sad-com) in development with UFA Fiction THE NEW JERUSALEM (2019). She was selected for the 2018 Series Mania Writers Campus, showcasing the twenty best emerging TV Drama Series writers in Europe, and for the Guardian Newspaper TV-25 Fast-track showcase at the International Edinburgh Television Festival.
Past Successes: Donna’s first stage play ADAM AND EVA AT THE GATES OF HEAVEN AND HELL was workshopped at the National Theatre Studio, London. Prior to writing drama, Donna wrote, directed and produced over a dozen high-end documentary films for the BBC and researched over twenty more, specialising in history, politics and economics. Her series credits include the BAFTA-nominated and National Television Award-winning WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? the EMMY award-winning and BAFTA-nominated PEOPLE’S CENTURY, the BAFTA award-winning TROUBLE AT THE TOP, and critically acclaimed THE MAJOR YEARS. Single full-length docs include SIR MARK THATCHER AND THE DOGS OF WAR (an ill-fated coup-for-oil attempt in West Africa), MURDER MOST ROYAL (the massacre of the Nepalese royals by their own Crown Prince) and MORTGAGED TO THE YANKS (US/UK post-war financial double-dealing). She has filmed in locations as diverse as Equatorial Guinea, Nepal, South Africa, Argentina, India, Colombia and Iraq, as well as extensively in the USA, particularly in Washington, DC.
Donna holds an MA in Creative Writing from UEA, and a BA in History from UCL. Originally from the UK, she now lives in Berlin, where she is raising her daughter and holds dual British/German citizenship. Donna is represented by the Knight Hall Agency, London.