Indiana, SquareOne & SND Team On Mafia Series ‘Ink Against Bullets’ From ‘Suburra’ Director — Mipcom

Andreas Wiseman
·2 min read

Italian firm Indiana Production, German outfit SquareOne Productions and French company SND (Groupe M6) have revealed details about their Italian-language mafia series L’Ora (Ink Against Bullets).

The 10-part returning mafia origin series is inspired by the real-life investigative endeavors of the Sicilian newspaper of the same name.

The series is directed by Piero Messina, best known for Netflix Original series Suburra, Ciro d’Emilio and Stefano Lorenzi. Currently in post-production, completion is scheduled for Q2, 2021. SND and SquareOne handle international rights.

The series will chart how in October 1958, the Sicilian newspaper L’Ora denounced the mafia and its endemic organized crime in the region. Shortly after, a bomb detonated in front of the editorial offices; only two days later the daily reappeared with the headline: ‘The Mafia may threaten us, our investigation continues.’

Inspired by those events, the series takes place in Palermo of the late 1950s and early 1960s and will follow how a newly minted editor in chief with his group of fearless journalists focus their investigation on organized crime and its reach into every corner of society.

Ezio Abbate (Netflix original series Curon), Claudio Fava (One Hundred Steps) and Riccardo Degni penned the story. Cast includes Claudio Santamaria (They Called him Jeeg Robot), Silvia d’Amico (The Place), Bruno Di Chiara (The Hunter), Maurizio Lombardi (The Young Pope), Francesco Colella (ZeroZeroZero) and Selene Caramazza.

The series was developed by Indiana Production for RTI/Mediaset Group with SND (Groupe M6) and SquareOne co-producing. Fabrizio Donvito, Benedetto Habib, Daniel Campos Pavoncelli and Marco Cohen are producers for Indiana with Al Munteanu and Thierry Desmichelle co-producers for SquareOne and SND (Groupe M6), respectively.

“This is an uncannily timely series,” said Fabrizio Donvito, producer for Indiana. “As we follow the epic story of a courageous group of journalists, who go head to head with a societal phenomenon, the reach of which they tragically underestimate.”

Al Munteanu, CEO of SquareOne, added: “The newspaper enjoyed its golden years in the late 50s and 60´s. In this era it published countless investigative reports – the price of this civic engagement was colossal. In this sense, this series speaks to today’s audience in an unprecedented manner, as we once again realize that free press is the cornerstone of accountability and truth.”

Charlotte Boucon, head of international at SND, stated: “We are thrilled to bring this extraordinary series to an international audience. Think Spotlight meets Gomorrah. It is an inspirational story served by wonderful talent in front and behind the camera. Its timely topics such as the fight for justice and the responsibility of the media seem to resonate as much today as it did 60 years ago…”

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