On June 22, FILM.UA and Novyi TV channel broke the plate symbolizing the start of filming for The New One, a 20-episode youth melodrama with detective twists. The film’s characters are students of an elite school, their parents and teachers as well as police officers conducting a secret investigation in the school.
The story is set in a school for children of very rich parents where Vera, a girl from a poor family, finds herself unwillingly. She has a secret task from the police she has to see through due to personal circumstances. The girl immediately gets into the center of a confusing detective plot and school conflicts. But the main thing that awaits her is the real first love.
The challenges of integration, coming of age, relationships with parents and teachers, money, status, leadership, love and friendship – the teenagers in the series will have to solve lots of issues, including those relevant for adults.
“We are creating a brave and fascinating story with passions running high and lots of events happening,” said Yulia Mischenko, series showrunner. “It is about love, friendship, search for real self and your heart’s desires. The project team consists of incredibly talented and cool professionals. We aspire to create a TV show enjoyable for young audiences and their parents alike.”
The project team is convinced that such format is lacking on Ukrainian TV.
“At the studio, we have been working on this project for a while,” said Anna Yeliseyeva, series producer. "We wanted to make a complex and captivating product able to compete for the youngsters’ attention. They don’t only watch local TV; thanks to online platforms, they know shows coming from the West as well. Yulia Mischenko has created a surprising but natural genre mix. The audience of Novyi TV channel will find everything they are hung up on in The New One. We believe in this story, our young actors, the team and the TV channel. Our cooperation is synergy as it is."
The high school students are played by young actors, students of theatre schools. The auditions lasted for about six months and according to the director turned out to be a real Star Academy where best of the best won. The lead roles in the series were given to Egor Kozlov, Anastasia Nesterenko, Yevgeniy Lisnichiy, Yaroslav Shakhtorin, Katerina Dichka, Irina Makarova, and others.
The project highlight is music – there will be a lot of it in the series as this is what brings together a “regular” teenager Vera and the richest kid in school she has fallen for. The songs by Melovin who is all the rage now will become the soundtrack to the series, and the singer will lend his voice to the protagonist when he’ll be singing in the shot.
“Each story always has two main components: the script and the actors,” says Sasha Tkachenko, production manager at Novyi TV channel. “The New One has a solid script: you read it until page 46 and then you’re indignant that the episode is over, so you email the writers, ‘Guys, keep on working! I wanna know what happens next.’” And there are also lots of “cute and talented new faces” among the actors and a passionate team “with sparkling eyes”. So this fall we invite you to recall how it is: to love, to lose your illusions and to experience the strongest feelings for the first time – the way it is only possible when you’re 17 ☺.
Here is the series team:
Directors: Maksim Gulenko, Pavel Maschenko
DOP: Vladimir Ostapets
Producer: Anna Eliseeva
Showrunner: Yulia Mischenko
Costume designer: Oksana Timonina
Art director: Natalia Bartash
Makeup artist: Ekaterina Dal
The New One premieres already this fall on Novyi TV channel
