Netflix has enlisted Oscar-nominated Agnieszka Holland (“Europa Europa,” “Spoor”) to direct the streaming service’s first original series in Polish. The show is expected to be made available to Netflix subscribers globally next year.
Holland, who previously collaborated with Netflix on several episodes of “House of Cards,” will direct the eight-episode season of the yet-to-be-titled series with Kasia Adamik, her daughter and co-director on the mystery drama “Spoor,” which won the Silver Bear in Berlin. Created and written by Joshua Long, the series will be shot in various cities and regions in Poland.
Netflix said the show will follow the grand tradition of Cold War spy thrillers and will take place in an alternative reality in which the Iron Curtain never fell. “Now, in 2002, twenty years after a devastating terrorist attack in 1982 that halted the course of Poland’s liberation and the subsequent downfall of the Soviet Union, an idealistic law student and a disgraced police investigator stumble upon a conspiracy that has kept the Iron Curtain standing and Poland living under a repressive police state,” Netflix said.
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Erik Barmack, VP of international original series at Netflix, said the streaming service was “thrilled to be working with The Kennedy/Marshall Company and House Media on this project alongside great Polish director Agnieszka Holland….We are confident that this genre will not only resonate with the Polish audience but will also travel globally and we can’t wait to share more details later this year.”
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The Kennedy/Marshall Company and The House Media Company will be producing for Netflix. Frank Marshall (“Jurassic World,” “Jason Bourne”) and Robert Zotnowski (“House of Cards”) will be executive-producing, along with Polish producer Andrzej Besztak (“House Media”), Maciej Musiał, Long, and Holland.
“We are really happy that we’ll be able to combine the wonderful experience of the Netflix team, our great American producers and writer, with Polish talent and a Polish sensibility,” Holland said.
Holland’s latest film, “Spoor,” about a retired engineer in a remote area of Poland who starts her own investigation after finding a body, has been selected to represent Poland in the foreign-language Oscar race.