Out of the 15 projects selected and presented yesterday at the Co-Pro Pitching Sessions, organised by the festival’s professional sidebar Series Mania Forum (read our article and our interview with director Francesco Capurro), the jury presided over by Brit Antony Root (WarnerMedia EMEA) and further composed of Italy’s Daniele Cesarano (RTI Mediaset Group), French producer Yaël Fogiel (Les Films du Poisson), England’s Noel Hedges (eOne) and Germany’s Susanne Frank (ZDF Drama) unanimously crowned South African project Paradys its winner.

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Awarded 50,000 euros by Series Mania, Paradys is produced by Nimrod Geva on behalf of Quizzical Pictures and was created by Darrel Bristow-Bovey (who also wrote the screenplay) alongside Anton Visser. The story unfolds as follows: following the first democratic elections in 1994, formal apartheid ended in South Africa … with the exception of one town in the north-western desert, on the banks of the Orange River, where a consortium of Afrikaans farmers bought a parcel of arid land to create a private, whites-only town they call Paradys.

Paradys sets its own rules, has its own private police force and keeps outsiders out. But when a horrific murder forces them to open their doors, two detectives are the first black people ever to set foot in Paradys. Milly Tjale is young, conscientious and respectful. Working on her first case, she’s determined to play it by the book. Ezekiel Joyi is angry and embittered; he wants to burn this racist town to the ground. Somehow, they must work together to navigate an upside-down world of shifting allegiances, apocalyptic cults and covert interference from the American alt-right, in order to finally uncover a truth that is neither black nor white.

“Although the setting is local, we believe the story, its themes and its characters will also resonate with audiences outside of South Africa. The country is well-known for the high quality of the international productions which shoot there. To see the same standards applied to a distinctive and ambitious local project will be very exciting”, remarked Antony Root.

More than a hundred projects have been presented within the Co-Pro Pitching Sessions since their creation in 2013, not least the two winners of last year’s Series Mania Festival: Blackport [+leggi anche:
intervista: Olivier Wotling
scheda series] (named Best Series within the International Competition) and The Last Socialist Artifact [+leggi anche:
recensione
scheda series] (crowned Best Series within the International Panorama line-up). And two previous Co-Pro Pitching Sessions entrants have been selected for this year’s official line-up in Series Mania: Des Gens Bien (Belgium/France) and Hors Saison (France/Switzerland).