The production has been selected at Berlinale Series Market to be included in the program of the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival.
The Berlinale Series Market is an integral part of the European Film Market and gathers annually industry experts, producers, distributors, copyright holders to demonstrate and discuss the main trends in global TV serial production.
This year, the Berlinale Series team selected productions from different countries to be included the festival program, assessing them in terms of a high market potential of the series. The Berlinale Series Market Selects 2022 includes 13 projects produced by filmmakers from around the world. Thus, “The Silence” is recognized as one of the most promising series for international distribution.
The series was created by Drugi Plan (Croatia), Star Media (Ukraine), Beta Film, a German distributor, HRT, Croatian broadcaster, OLL.TV, a streaming platform of Ukraine, and ZDF/ARTE. The series was filmed in Croatia and Ukraine in 2021.
The series is based on the plot of "Election Silence", the first novel of a best-selling “Slavonian Trilogy” by Drago Hedl, a Croatian writer and journalist, narrating about a criminal business associated with human and arms trafficking in Eastern Europe. Drago Hedl himself is widely known far beyond Croatia and has repeatedly been awarded prestigious international journalism awards for his high-profile investigations.
The series was directed by Dalibor Matanić, whose filmography includes, inter alia, the series "The Paper" produced for Netflix. The script of the series was written by Marjan Alčevski, the author of the script for "Success" produced for HBO Europe.
“The story is based on true events that were hushed up for a long time. If at least a single person involved in crime changes his mind and renounces evil, then we, as a team, did not work in vain,” commented director Dalibor Matanich. The series resounded at the stage of filming already, and even influenced political life: one of the candidates in the local elections in Croatia was forced to withdraw from the elections.
The Berlinale Series Market is a joint initiative of the European Film Market, Berlinale Co-Production Market and Berlinale Talents organized in cooperation with Berlinale Series.
The Berlinale Series Market is traditionally held during the Berlin International Film Festival.
The Berlinale Series Market Selects section works at the Berlinale Series Market for the second consecutive year, picking up the brightest and most promising projects from around the world.
About the production:
Title: The Silence/Зломовчання
Number of episodes: 6
Directed by: Dalibor Matanić
Written by: Marian Alčevski
Producers: Nebojša Taraba, Miodrag Sila, Vlad Riashyn, Nadia Rekhter-Gareva, Rita Grebenchikova
Cast: Kseniya Mishina, Goran Bogdan, Darko Milas, Viktor Saraykin, Andrey Isayenko, Irina Verenich-Ostrovskaya.
Production: Drugi plan and HRT in collaboration with Beta Film, Star Media, OLL.TV and ZDF/ARTE
Brief Description
The story unfolds in Croatia and Ukraine in modern times.
The first girl drowned. The second one died of a drug overdose. The main suspect in these deaths turns out to be innocent very soon and... dead too. Detective Vladimir and reporter Stribor are struggling to solve the murders in Croatia.
At the same time, Olga, a Ukrainian who lives in Kyiv, learns that her niece is missing. Olga's husband, Ivan Hrvatić, is one of the most influential people in the Croatian city of Osijek and the search for the niece brings her there. There she meets Vladimir and Stribor.
The three of them encounter a number of other similar disappearances of teenage girls. As a result, they get on the track of a mafia that kidnaps Ukrainian girls and sells them into sexual slavery in Europe, being in parallel involved in arms smuggling. The three main characters try to defend the truth and challenge the criminal org