Bitter Ode to Zagreb ‘Success’ is the First HBO Series from the Adria Region

The series “Success”, the first HBO series from the Adria region, has been announced as a “bitter ode to the city of Zagreb that provides a dark insight into the various structures of today’s society through the life stories of ordinary people whom that same society has pushed over the edge”.

The six-part script is authored by the younger generation writer Marjan Alčevski, one of the winners of the HBO Adria “First Draft” competition, and the series will be directed by Oscar winner Danis Tanović.

– Although at first glance very Zagreb-like, ‘Success’ is a universal, layered story in which we explore the currently prevailing feelings of frustration, helplessness, and passivity in the everyday life of an ordinary person in the region and beyond through love, work, family, loyalty, insecurity, and crime, it is emphasized in the announcement by the Croatian Audiovisual Centre.

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It is a multi-layered drama focused on strong characters, three complete strangers connected by an unfortunate sequence of events after they attempt to help a victim of violence.

For Bosnian-Herzegovinian director, screenwriter, and producer Danis Tanović, this is his first experience directing a series. He has previously directed award-winning films “Death in Sarajevo” and “Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker”, and his debut “No Man’s Land” won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film in 2001.

Tanović says he has been receiving materials and offers for series production for a long time, which he believes are currently more interesting and innovative than feature films, but until now, none have intrigued him.

– Marjan Alčevski’s script is brilliantly written, and I am really looking forward to HBO recognizing the quality and offering me collaboration, he emphasized.

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Antony Root, Executive Vice President of Programming and Production at HBO Europe, rated “Success” as an excellently written drama that delves beneath the surface of contemporary urban life, revealing the story layer by layer.

– We are thrilled to have discovered a brilliant young writer in Marjan, and to welcome Danis to HBO Europe for his first series as a director, which is also our first original drama from the Adria region, he noted.

HBO Adria director Marin Kariž is also pleased with the upcoming collaboration, especially since the script is a direct product of their First Draft competition and collaboration with the winner.

– Given that the direction has been taken on by Oscar winner Danis Tanović, we are confident that what seems at first glance to be a typical new Zagreb story will easily resonate with our viewers in Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and North Macedonia, he added.

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The producers of “Success” are Ana Balentović (HBO Adria) and Johnathan Young (HBO Europe), while the production of the series has been entrusted to the production company Drugi Plan.

For the HBO Adria “First Draft” competition, which was presented in 2016 at the Sarajevo Film Festival as part of the CineLink Drama program, 570 applications were received. Authors were invited to submit their original scripts set in Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro.