Keshet International has boarded Darrel Bristow-Bovey and Anton Visser’s South African series “Paradys,” selected as a finalist for next month’s Series Mania Co-Pro Pitching Sessions.
Keshet international joins Quizzical Pictures as a production partner and will handle global distribution of the finished series.
Described as a “tense, character-driven murder mystery,” the series is based on Orania, a real city in South Africa where, 25 years after apartheid, segregation still holds strong. In the fictional series, the town of Paradys shirks the favored “Rainbow Nation” vision shared by the majority of South Africans, and instead embraces an outdated vision of white superiority which its leaders argue is simply an attempt at protecting Afrikaner heritage.
Tensions mount when a horrific murder is committed within the community’s white walls and two Black police officers are sent to investigate. Twisting on the good-cop-bad-cop archetype, one is a by-the-book cop focused on executing her sworn duty, while the other is driven by passion and would prefer to see the backwards community burn.