Scandinavia’s leading sales outfit REinvent has boarded Norway’s true crime “Escaping Bolivia,” currently filming in Cape Town, South Africa, after an initial shoot in Oslo.
Fenomen (“Rod Knock”) and longstanding outfit 4 ½ (“Out Stealing Horses”) are producing for TV2 Norway, in co-production with Germany’s pubcaster NDR and Oslo Film Fund.
Helmer Anna Gutto, behind Lionsgate’s “Paradise Highway” starring Juliette Binoche, is concept director, working next to creator and episodic writer Emily Beck, attached to Netflix’s “Royalteen.” Toplining the six-part series are Jakob Oftebro (“Agent Hamilton”), Ella Øverbye, from Dag Johan Haugerud’s “Dreams,” Josephine Tetlie, Lisa Hovden and Danish actor Joachim Fjelstrup (“The Girl With the Needle”).
The show is inspired by the infamous drug case of three Norwegian girls aged 17, 18, 21, who were imprisoned in Bolivia after being caught in 2008, with 22kg cocaine in their bags. Two managed to escape – one with a child, helped by a journalist – while the third stayed behind.
In the series, we follow Ida, her sister-in-law Michelle and Ida’s lover Cecilie, as they get arrested at the airport in Bolivia with suitcases packed with cocaine. They are sentenced to jail in one of the world’s most dangerous female prisons. Soon enough, Ida discovers that she can’t trust her friends, nor the Norwegian authorities’ ability to bail her out. She starts planning her escape.
“After eight years of development and research, it feels great that we’re finally filming!” said Beck who co-penned the story with Helena Nielsen, Ingrid Haukelidsæter. “I’m sure that “Escaping Bolivia” will touch, engage and challenge the viewers. The series focuses on friendship, betrayal and love, and something as unique and beautiful as motherhood and doing everything for people you love. At the same time, the series is also about what you’re willing to do and sacrifice to save yourself, and having to grow up behind bars,” she said.
Read the full story from Variety here.