The Ukrainian series, that already conquered Europe, is released this fall by ICTV broadcaster. The official trailer of eight-series noir “HIDE AND SEEK” is available online.
Cold stylistics of the frame, intentional detachment, dimmed colors and hues – the TV show draws you in from the very first minutes. Music emphasizes the anxious ambience of the story and makes your heart beat faster. And the themes raised by project authors are relevant and clear to the residents of any European country. The series doesn’t let you go until the very last moment, leaving three dots in the end.
Everything mentioned above might be the ingredients to the project’s success formula. In any case, even now HIDE AND SEEK is an innovational TV show both in style and dramaturgy: they call it the first Ukrainian noir.
Creative producer Olesya Lukyanenko talks about the theme and relevance of the series:
“We are looking forward to the screening in our country. HIDE AND SEEK touched upon important issues for our society: unenforceability of laws, lack of parental care, and illegal adoption. At the same time, we didn’t try to condemn anyone; instead, we wanted to shed light on the traumas of our society and the personal pain of each character who has been involved in the story in this or that way. This is where the special visual style comes from; it serves to underline the complexity and ambiguity of the topic and activates the feeling of anxiety.”
For more than half a year the first Ukrainian noir has been traveling victoriously all over Europe. The series has been selected for special screenings and competition programs of many festivals and film forums; the articles and interviews with project authors have appeared in Variety, C21 Media, etc.
European film critics and journalists note the rare cinematographic value of the project and compare it with such iconic TV shows as Bron, True Detective, and Top of the Lake.
Early this year, when the project was still in production, a leading European media company ZDF Enterprises acquired the rights to HIDE AND SEEK global distribution (with the exception of Ukraine, Russia and CIS). Actually, it was ZDFE that presented the famous Bron to the world at the time.
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In spring, HIDE AND SEEK became the first Ukrainian project selected for screening at MIPDrama Buyers Summit, a prestigious conference in Cannes.
Now the series already has impressive geography of screenings and support from the international professional audience. HIDE AND SEEK participated in several high-profile global film events: The Great Series Summit in Cologne, Séries Series in Fontainebleau, NATPE film market in Budapest. Just recently HIDE AND SEEK was presented in Tokyo.
Autumn for project authors is already planned: on September 16, the first Ukrainian noir will be presented at Kyiv Media Week, and on September 25 it is to be screened in the main competition program of Serial Killer film festival in Brno, Czech Republic. In November, the series will be presented at Seriencamp in Munich, the first festival of TV shows and TV culture in Germany.
Participation of the series in other prestigious film festivals and events is also discussed.
“This might sound overconfident but HIDE AND SEEK is a new stage of series production both for FILM.UA Group and Ukraine in general. Thanks to the incredible talent and diligent work of the creative group a Ukrainian series of the new generation has been created, and now it is able to compete with European TV shows. Due to our careful work with the international market and company positioning a famous distributor has been involved, and they are ready to pay real money for the rights. This is a first for Ukraine. The success of HIDE AND SEEK means success for the whole industry. We hope that HIDE AND SEEK will pave the way for directors and producers both to cultivate local industry and to realize international commercial potential of Ukrainian projects,” says Kateryna Vyshnevska, project co-producer and director for development and co-production at FILM.UA Group.
HIDE AND SEEK will premiere on ICTV in October. The premiere date will be announced later.
You can follow the project news on official FILM.UA Group pages:
Synopsis. In a regular apartment, father and daughter play hide-and-seek. Closing his eyes, the father starts counting, “One… Two… Three… Four… Five…” He is looking for the girl but doesn’t find her. The apartment is locked from inside, and neither the child nor the father left it during the game. Understanding that the girl has disappeared for real, father goes to the police. Later a video is published on the Net where the disappeared girl is holding a sign with a mysterious combination of numbers. It is obvious that the child has been kidnapped, and this is just the first victim in someone’s complicated and cruel game.
Screenwriter: Seemore Glasenko
Director: Iryna Gromozda
Cameraman: Sergiy Krutko
Executive producer: Andriy Rizvanyuk
Co-producer: Kateryna Vyshnevska
Creative producer: Olesya Lukyanenko
Producer: Viktor Mirsky
Cast: Yulia Abdel Fattakh, Petro Rykov, Vyacheslav Dovzhenko, Oleksandr Kobzar, Mykhaylo Troynik, Yakiv Kucherevsky, Oleg Moskalenko, Valeriy Legin, Yevgenia Gladiy, Oleksandr Sokolov, Volodymyr Zayets, and others.
