Marja Niemi
Yle
Yle is producing a drama series of eight episodes together with the Spanish media company Mediapro. The filming of the drama series The Paradise will start in November 2018, and it will be aired to Finnish audiences in autumn 2019.
The events of the crime drama take place in Fuengirola, a town located on the Costa del Sol, the sunny coast that Finns love. The story is about little Finland, a community far away from home that sticks to its own traditions. They have their own radio station and newspaper, as well as schools, restaurants, supermarkets, bakeries and doctors.
The main character of the series is a rarity: an approximately 60 year old female police officer. The series is also about the growth of the main character: how to cope with getting older and remaining full of life.
Hilkka Mäntymäki, senior criminal investigator from Oulu, goes to Fuengirola to find out what happened to a missing family. There she discovers that some pensioners have died under suspicious circumstances. Riitta Havukainen stars in the role of Mäntymäki.
"The Paradise is a story about memory, about those who try to forget the troubled past and live the present, and those who will not let them! The Paradise is first of hopefully many co-developments with creators, production companies and broadcasters, all over the world. Marking Mediapro's strategy to go wherever great content is, and make it happen" says Ran Tellem, Mediapro’s head of international development and Emmy-winning producer of, for instance, the Homeland series.
“Fuengirola is more than a place of refuge from bad weather and darkness, because there are over 15,000 Finns – from pensioners to IT specialists – living in the area around the year. Mediapro’s development executive David Troncoso got the idea of doing a Nordic crime drama in Finland and in Spain. We were excited at Yle Drama about this new possibility for collaboration”, says Jarmo Lampela, head of Yle Drama.
The main scriptwriter of The Paradise is Matti Laine, who has been episode writer for TV series Bordertown and Bullets and written several published crime novels. In addition to Laine, David Troncoso and Ran Tellem from Mediapro, as well as Jarmo Lampela from Yle have been involved in developing the series. Marja Pyykkö, director of The Paradise, has formerly directed for instance the crime series called called Hooked and Black Widows, which have won the Golden Venla award.
More information:
Jarmo Lampela, head of Yle Drama, jarmo.lampela@yle.fi
Liselott Forsman, Executive Producer International Projects, Yle Draama, liselott.forsman@yle.fi
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The MEDIAPRO Group is a global leader in multimedia content and a benchmark in multimedia content integration, production, and distribution with 41 international offices distributed worldwide. For 20 years, its products have been achieving success in prime time slots on the principal Spanish TV channels.
