We cannot keep silent anymore: HIDE AND SEEK, the first Ukrainian noir TV series, has been sold to new territories. ZDF Enterprises, the international distributor of the project, shares the details of new deals on project rights acquisition.
ZDF Enterprises announced the list of new territories the viewers of which will soon see HIDE AND SEEK, a Ukrainian noir detective series; they are Germany, the USA, and English-speaking Canada and Estonia. In the US and Canada, HIDE AND SEEK will be premiered on Walter Presents streaming service. The service strategy opts for high-quality international dramas and comedies broadcast with English subtitles. The co-founder and curator Walter Iuzzolino (the service is named after him) is personally responsible for content selection. HIDE AND SEEK is the first Ukrainian project available on the platform, and we are happy that it has been selected for premiere in North America, a new and important territory for the service.
As for the German TV channel to premiere HIDE AND SEEK, we’ll reveal its name a bit later. For now it is known that the series will be dubbed in German (which happens very rarely for Eastern European projects as this content is deemed niche so the cost of dubbing is traditionally considered too high). After the premiere on TV channel, the rights for streaming on a local VOD platform will be unlocked.
Just a reminder: ZDF Enterprises, one of the leading German media companies, has acquired rights to HIDE AND SEEK distribution beyond the territory of Ukraine, Russia and CIS when the series was still in the production stage. This became an unprecedented event for the Ukrainian TV series market. The most significant early agreement is the series sale to Italy where HIDE AND SEEK will be broadcast on Rai Quattro, a free-of-charge TV channel belonging to RAI, Italian national TV and radio company. ZDF Enterprises has also sold the series to Benelux countries (Lumiere), Poland (Canal+), the Czech Republic (FTV Prima, Bonton Film), and Slovakia (Bonton Film).
“Since the very beginning we understood that HIDE AND SEEK is a radically new product from Eastern Europe. With time, our expectations have only been strengthened. Many broadcasters finally admit that this is a remarkable European series. We are looking forward to the engagement of new partners as we are just in the beginning of our way!” says Mirela Nastase, head of ZDFE.drama.
The opinion of German colleagues is reinforced by HIDE AND SEEK success at famous international festivals. The project was presented at MIPDrama Buyers Summit in Cannes, The Great Series Summit in Cologne, NATPE Eastern European content market in Budapest, Serial Killer in Brno, MIPCOM film market in Cannes, MIA Summit in Roma, SERIENCAMP in Munich, and Göteborg Film Festival.
.png)
«HIDE AND SEEK already has an exceptional geographical reach. The only other comparable Ukrainian TV series is The Sniffer. And the specifics of sales (broadcasting on free-of-charge television, dubbing in the territory language, sales to Italy, Germany and the USA) are a great rarity for Eastern European content in general,” says Kateryna Vyshnevska, director for development and co-production at FILM.UA Group.
Just a reminder: the filming for project was completed in February 2019, and the Ukrainian premiere took place in October on ICTV channel. The series is also available for Ukrainian audience on FILM.UA Group official YouTube channel.
FYI
Director: Iryna Gromozda
Producer: Viktor Mirsky
Creative producer: Olesya Lukyanenko
Co-producer: Kateryna Vyshnevska
Executive producer: Andriy Rizvanyuk
Cameraman: Sergiy Krutko
Genre: thriller, detective story, criminal drama
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.
Produced by: FILM.UA
Distributor: ZDF Enterprises
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.
