Japanese broadcaster Nippon TV is leading a new scripted drama charge into Turkey, beginning with Mother, continuing with Woman, My Life For My Children, which premiered in October, and with a third title already in discussion, and the possibility of a further two acquisitions. For us, says production house Medyapim’s chief executive, Fatih Aksoy, Japan “is a new source of stories”.

Mother is the story of an abused and abandoned child brought up by her elementary school teacher, an aloof woman who responds to the girl’s silent cries for help. Nippon TV, which has since sold the format to Korea’s CJ E&M, describes the drama as probing into “the meaning of motherhood in modern society”.

“The story is so touching,” says Medyapim’s Aksoy, adding that the Japanese series is “more like an art movie. It’s more than a TV series”.

The Turkish version of Mother, which aired on Star TV Turkey as Anne, won the Special Award for MF Yapim/Medyapim at the Tokyo Drama Awards in October 2017. The award is for dramas produced outside of Japan that foster cultural understanding and business partnerships.

Reversioning the drama for Turkey wasn’t without its challenges, not least because the series was too short, key themes like sexual abuse couldn’t be mentioned, and the fierce competition between Turkey’s six stations that air drama every night, Aksoy said shortly after accepting the award.

“The Turkish market is not like Japan where you finish 11 episodes and then air the series. We start production and the show goes to air when the second episode is done. If it’s successful, it continues to the end of the season. If not, it’s cancelled,” he says.

To recreate Mother/Anne for Turkey, Medyapim hired multiple writers, two directors and two crews. The task included stretching the story line from 11 episodes of the Japanese original to the 35-40 episodes required to even be considered for a drama slot in Turkey. “The first thing we asked for was more episodes,” Aksoy says. Writer Yuji Sakamoto declined, saying he couldn’t pick up a story he had laid to rest 10 years ago.

“So we took the story we had and told it to our audience anyway,” Aksoy says. The original 11 were adapted to make the first eight for Turkey, with another 25 created by, for one, making the girl’s birth mother a lead character.

Aksoy acknowledges that it was risky move, given that in episode one the woman throws her daughter into the garbage.

“It makes it difficult for people to empathise,” Aksoy says. But it worked and she became a popular character. Her boyfriend – “not a good guy,” Aksoy says – was also developed into an important character. And so the story was enlarged. And then there’s the matter of the ending, which was a happy one for Turkish viewers.

Production budgets were on the high side at approx US$400,000 excluding talent, a cost that cannot be recouped from the domestic market alone. MF Yapim is distributing the Turkish version globally.

In some ways, adapting Mother for Turkey was easier than making local version of U.S. series, which have “action all the time... and we have to create feelings between the action,” Aksoy says, adding: “Japan has a totally different story telling style. It’s more consistent with Turkey”.