Filenews 18 October 2021
An exclusive extensive tribute to the new international crime series that is in the making and takes place in Cyprus is published by the online edition of the American magazine Variety, which also refers to the creation of a new narrative genre, the "Mediterranean noir".
The reason for the TV series "Farpoint" which was submitted last week to a co-production forum at the MIA Market of the Rome Film Festival and according to Variety all the conditions are there for an exciting production of Mediterranean noir, which marks the first attempt "for a high-end international drama concerning the island nation of Cyprus".
"Farpoint" is inspired by a real murder case in the 1990s that shook Cyprus. The three main elements involved are an unsolved murder, a detective with a dark past and a bitterly divided island located on the razor's edge.
Producers are Three River Fiction from the UK the companies Caretta Films and Splash Screen Entertainment from Cyprus, with distribution ZDF Enterprises.
As the co-creator and co-writer of the series Andreas Splash Kyriacou notes in the article, his intention was to use the murder case as the basis for a fictional story that will give him the opportunity to talk a little more about the island and its unique place in Europe.
To do this, she sought the help of co-writer and co-creator Sophie McVey, who was thrilled with the character of the newly appointed chief inspector Ashley Gallagher, the first female head of the regional police force in the sovereign base areas of Cyprus. "She's a woman ahead of her time," McVey said. "Apart from being like a fish out of the water, it has to face a lot of pressure to prove who it is in a male-dominated world."
According to the scenario, Gallagher wanted to take a break having closed a long-standing case of a serial rapist in the UK and to deal with the consequences of a difficult divorce. Instead, she stumbles upon a murder investigation that forces her to face dark secrets about the sunny Mediterranean island - as well as some of her own.
"He thinks he's escaping. And Cyprus looks like the perfect opportunity," says McVey. "He believes it will be an easy detachment in a sunny place and an opportunity to escape. But what I like about this character is that he can't get away from what he is."
The author compares her protagonist to recent successful short-screen characters, such as researcher Mare Sheehan in the HBO drama series "Mare of Easttown" or chief inspector Amy Silva in the BBC crime series "Vigil". "She is a strong, but complex, multifaceted woman in a position of power who takes risks and sometimes makes mistakes and whose trauma affects the fierce quest for justice - and that is what makes her so exciting," she added.
"Farpoint" co-creator and creative producer Ben McGrath, from Three River Fiction, said the series offers a Mediterranean version of the hugely popular genre of Scandinavian noir, something the creators have called "Med Noir" (Mediterranean noir).
"We follow a similar aesthetic, but we turn it over," McGrath said. "In Scandinavian noir, you create tones and atmosphere with the landscape and it would be quite sparse, it could be snowy or quite wild... We want to do something very similar in terms of the effect it has on the viewer, embracing the real unique quality or characteristics that Cyprus has. And I think it's frivolously insurmountable and untapped."
Mirela Nastase, of ZDF Enterprises, said the public is ready for a different approach to the noir genre. "Viewers, after two years of a pandemic, are still fascinated with real crime and crime in general, but they want a little more sun," he said. "I think everyone will really be happy to travel and discover an island that many have visited and many have not visited to really understand the complexity, politics, cultural, social complexity of this small place."
As Variety notes, for viewers and creators, it's an opportunity to enter an uncharted territory. "Cyprus is a virgin ground for series," said Cypriot producer Konstantinos Nikiforou of Caretta Films. "Nothing like this ever fell on the table for discussion." As added, the island not only offers a variety of attractive locations - many of which have never appeared on the screen - but also has an attractive reimbursement policy of up to 40%, while for foreign producers an additional refund of up to 25% for above-the-line expenses.
The creators express the belief that they have all the ingredients for a range of long-term -and long-term- capabilities. "There are a lot of pieces of the case that we've deliberately left open about this possibility," McGrath said. "But it's also pretty clear that this is also a six-episode standalone story in itself." The effort is to transfer this to the script. According to him, a large part of MIA's experience is the effective implementation of further collaborations "that will help us formalize this funding and promote it in order to write a script and build from it".
