Blue Ant International has acquired the international licensing rights to the U.K. six-part series Secrets of the Imperial War Museum.

Through the deal, the series commissioned for British free-to-air TV network Channel 5, will be available to license for the first time outside the U.K. and Ireland.

The deal was brokered by Gerbrig Blanksma, SVP of international sales and partnerships, Blue Ant International, with the executive team at Spring Films. Blanksma joined Blue Ant last April to expand Blue Ant International’s content library with high-impact documentaries as well as factual entertainment, scripted and kids and family genres.

Secrets of the Imperial War Museum takes viewers inside London’s Imperial War Museum which houses more than 30 million archived objects ranging from teddy bears to battleships and 50,000 hours of film covering conflicts from the First World War to present day Afghanistan and Iraq. Viewers will also have the chance to see rare hundred-year-old archive film and GoPro digital footage shot only months ago.

“Secrets of the Imperial War Museum gives audiences incredible access to artifacts from past and present, offering new perspectives on history and culture,” said Solange Attwood, EVP, Blue Ant International in a release.

“After more than a year of lockdown restrictions on some of the world’s most beloved museums, this series is a rich experience that will ignite a fascination to learn more about the items and events that shaped our society,” she added.

The series will also include the final months of development of two new galleries at IWM London, the Second World War and the Holocaust Galleries which are set to open this fall, with the reopening of HMS Belfast, the most significant surviving Second World War Royal Navy warship, on the River Thames. The museum’s five venues attract more than 2 million people each year.

“What was wonderful to discover was the personal and powerful stories that each of them held and the pride the curators have in sharing them with the world. It’s one of the greatest insights into contemporary history I’ve been involved in,” said Richard Melman, executive producer, Spring Films.

Photo: Courtesy of Blue Ant