US cable net Lifetime and German free-to-air broadcaster RTL are joining forces to coproduce a TV movie about the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster.

German producer and distributor Beta Film is the third copro partner on Concordia (WT) and is expected to handle international sales.

Beta Film’s outgoing managing director, Eric Welbers, revealed details of the disaster TV movie at a NATPE Europe conference session in Prague.

The Costa Concordia cruise ship was shipwrecked off the Italian coast in early 2012. The subsequent rescue effort attracted international headlines and the TV movie makes particular sense for the German partners as many passengers on board came from the country.

The event TV movie project started out at Lifetime before RTL and Beta came on board and reworked the production model. The bulk of the funding will come from the German partners, with the film being shot in English and dubbed for the German market.

“We turned it around and made it a German production, coproduced with Lifetime,” Welbers said. “We can shoot it in English and it is a very natural project [for the copro partners.”

Shooting is slated to start next year and movie director Roger Spottiswoode (Tomorrow Never Dies) is also attached.

Eric Welbers will leave Beta Film in the next few weeks, after almost twenty years at the Munich-based producer and distributor.

Welbers was speaking at NATPE yesterday on a coproduction panel moderated by TBI. He confirmed he is leaving Beta, where he is managing director.

The seasoned TV exec will remain in the international business and Welbers told TBI he will still work on various projects set up at Beta, including the upcoming Concordia RTL-Lifetime TV movie.

His next move will be confirmed within a couple of months, he added.

As managing director of Beta, Welbers has worked on numerous high-profile European drama series including, recently, German series Generation War, Italian mafia drama Gomorrah and Spanish scripted offerings including Grand Hotel and Velvet, which Beta distributes.