Hot Picks: Borderline

If the promise of ‘True Detective meets The Bridge – on the Irish border’ sounds intriguing, how about this? Borderline, the crime drama fitting that description, comes fully funded by German broadcaster ZDF.

It’s not the most obvious route for the series – a gritty procedural from Ballykissangel and Cold Feet writer John Forte, in which a straitlaced Northern Irish detective inspector and his bolshy, sweary counterpart from the Republic of Ireland are forced to work together to solve brutal cases.

Beyond the casting – Eoin Macken (NBC’s La Brea) and Amy De Bhrún, who has appeared in Line Of Duty and the 2016 feature film Jason Bourne – Lionsgate is releasing few details of the Screen Ireland-backed drama, which it picked up at script stage.

The drama comes from one Republic of Ireland company (ShinAwil) and one UK-based firm (Further South Productions). ShinAwil has provided production services for Monumental’s ITV drama Maryland, Propellor’s Channel 5 series The Catch, Buccaneer Media’s Paramount+ series The Doll Factory and Element 8’s Miss Scarlet And The Duke for A+E Networks International.

Meanwhile, Steve November’s Further South Productions, which was previously part of the Lionsgate Group, produced upcoming Channel 4/Hulu drama Queenie.

The companies are mid-way through filming and the drama comes to the London TV Screenings on paper only.

Having shepherded the successful Irish drama series Northern Lights as a co-production between TG4 and ZDF last year, Lionsgate president of international television and digital distribution Agapy Kapouranis says ZDF felt like a great partner for this series, given German audiences’ love of crime drama.

“This is very premium, with great storytelling,” she says. “It’s gritty and, given the political situation in Northern Ireland, the timing feels right for a drama in which two police officers with personal and professional differences are forced to work together despite the geography created by the border.”

Borderline does not wear its politics heavily, but the history of the two countries is often alluded to. Macken’s character, Philip Boyd, always checks for bombs underneath his car before getting in, for example. De Bhrún’s Regan, meanwhile, wears a constant attitude but gets results.

Forte has penned three cases for the unlikely duo to work on, each of which will play out across two 60-minute episodes, with the full series running to six episodes. ZDF plans to air at least the first two episodes back to back and the series is also being offered as 3 x 90-minute episodes.

While promising that it’s not as dark as True Detective, Kapouranis says that Forte has established a comparable odd-couple dynamic, which is key to its appeal.

“These characters know they’re just not meant to get along, but you see that they try, even though Regan is hard to break.”

Lionsgate is representing the series with one eye on linear free TV and one on securing SVoD windows, Interest is expected from Australia and Canada.