HBO Max has acquired Central and Eastern Europe rights to “I Know Your Soul,” the crime drama series by Oscar-nominated Bosnian filmmaker Jasmila Žbanić (“Quo Vadis, Aida?”). The show, which world premiered at the Venice Film Festival, is currently playing as part of the Agora Series TV strand of the Thessaloniki Film Festival.
Also included in the deal, which was brokered by Munich-based production and distribution outfit Beta Film, is the Serbian thriller “Children of Evil,” based on the best-selling novel by Miodrag Majić.
Further negotiations with key European buyers are underway for both shows.
“I Know Your Soul” is a six-episode limited series, written, directed and produced by Žbanić, who also serves as showrunner. The cast is led by European Film Award-winning actor Jasna Đuričić (“Quo Vadis, Aida?”), who plays Nevena Murtezic, a prosecutor in the process of divorce and single mother to a teenage son. The case of an adolescent’s suicide triggers an avalanche of events in her professional and private life, as she finds it increasingly difficult to balance the needs of her son, Dino (Lazar Dragojević), with a job that is under constant public and political pressure.
The show is produced by Deblokada and BH Content Lab for BH Telecom and will be available on HBO Max starting Nov. 23.
Best known for films such as the Oscar-nominated “Quo Vadis, Aida?” and “Grbavica: Land of My Dreams,” which won the Berlin Film Festival’s Golden Bear in 2006, Žbanić’s credits include HBO’s Emmy-nominated “The Last of Us.”
Ten-part thriller series “Children of Evil” unfolds as a masked perpetrator commits a ritualistic murder of a prominent politician, leaving a golden coin in his hand. Nikola Bobic, a defense attorney popular among criminals, reluctantly takes on a new case and becomes part of a dangerous game that will change his life forever. The show is directed by Ivan Stefanović (“Grupa”) and Vladimir Tagic (“Morning Changes Everything”), and is produced by Firefly Productions for Telekom Srbija. It is already available to stream on HBO Max.
Finally, the second season of crime series “The Silence,” directed by Dalibor Matanić (“The Last Socialist Artefact,” “The Paper”), will be available for streaming on HBO Max on Nov. 9. Produced by Drugi Plan and HRT in collaboration with Beta Film and Ukrainian Producers Hub, the series is based on the fact-based books by investigative journalist Drago Hedl that examine human and weapons trafficking throughout Eastern Europe.
The Thessaloniki Film Festival runs Nov. 2 – 12.
