Who is Walter Iuzzolino, thanks to whom the Croatian series 'Rest in Peace' will be broadcast in Great Britain from next year

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Not only is this our first series to air in the UK but it is also the first from across the region. It is no coincidence that Walter Iuzzolino "hooked" on it because so far it has had quite a notable worldwide success.

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Few people in our country have heard of Walter Iuzzolino, but he is a big shot in the UK. An Italian-born, a former employee of British television, offered Channel 4 to set aside a special program that viewers could consume by their choice, but composed primarily of foreign series with subtitles.

It doesn’t matter if it’s Belgian, Spanish, Czech, or Argentine: it’s important that it’s attractive and that it can attract viewers. The program was called “Walter Presents,” and that was true, because Iuzzolino took care of the marketing of each series, choosing the trailers and pushing them to Channel 4 slots that he knew guaranteed the highest ratings. It was not a fight against windmills, BBC 4 managed to turn the Danish series "Murder" and "Borgen" into big hits - as many as half a million Brits watched some of their episodes - and "Walter Presents" set a record in that: exciting German spy show “Deutschland 83” became the most-watched series with subtitles in that country. Iuzzolino appreciates Netflix but thinks they buy too much and promote too little, one would get the impression that they don’t care about the ratings of what they put on their platform.

This year alone, Walter Presents offered several treats, including the Spanish series Captives, which is considered by many to be similar to Netflix's similar series Orange Is the New Black, and the Brazilian series Magnifica 70, about a young censor who falls for a porn star, then the Dutch "Neighbors" about two couples whose destinies are dramatically intertwined, and the Belgian "Klan" about five sisters who are planning a perfect murder.

The most interesting thing is that next year "Walter Presents" will broadcast the Croatian series "Rest in Peace", both of its seasons. Not only is this our first series to air in the UK but it is also the first from across the region. It is no coincidence that Walter Iuzzolino "hooked" on it because so far it has had quite a notable worldwide success. It was invited to a festival in Seoul, where it was noticed by the Swedish company Ecco Rights and resold to the prestigious company Lionsgate Television (produced "Mad Men"), which bought the rights to eventually make an American remake. In the meantime, the series has been invited to several other important world festivals, and was bought last year by the Belgian public television VRT. It was the first time that a Croatian drama series airs in Western Europe, and now the big British market is conquered.

The first season of "Rest in Peace" was created under the supervision of Dario Vince, owner of Ring Produkcija, on the idea of Koraljka Meštrović and Goran Rukavina, which was later designed by the main screenwriter Saša Podgorelec. Directed by Rukavina and Kristijan Milić, the main roles were played by Judita Franković, Miodrag Krivokapić, and Dragan Despot, while the novelty - and not only in our production - was a story that was partly linear, and partly plunged into the past. It had 12 episodes and was executed at the level we are not used to in domestic drama production, which was very well recognized in the world.

The first season aired in early 2013, and two years later the second season arrived, which was even more successful, had fewer episodes, a total of ten, mostly linear action (there were still flaschbacks), and attractive locations in Istria - in which journalist Lucija Car (Franković) is investigating a new murder case - certainly impressed foreigners, as well as elements of occultism. Since the character of the retired prison guard who played Krivokapić died at the end of the first season, Dragan Despot and Luka Dragić joined Franković in the second, and Goran Navojec and Anja Šovagović joined them as important roles. The second season was entirely directed by Goran Dukić, who mostly lives in America, but he could not refuse such an engagement.

Ring Produkcija is near completion of the third season script, somewhat disturbed by the constant changes among key people on HRT (which is why the first season had to wait almost half a year for a broadcasting license), but they assume that entering the British market, the first in the history of Croatian television, is a sufficient trump card for approval of the production of the series, which ends this third season.

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Rest in Peace to air on UK television

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'The project Walter Presents was initiated in order to introduce the best dramas from around the globe and we are proud to have bought the rights to broadcast the television drama series Rest in Peace, our first Croatian series. I hope that this is the first of many successful transactions for Croatian productions on the global market,' said Walter Iuzzolino, television producer and co-creator of Walter Presents.

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The TV-series Rest in Peace airs in Belgium

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The right to air the Croatian drama TV series Rest in Peace, developed within the National Program for the Development of the Audiovisual Industry, was purchased by the Belgian public television for the Flemish-speaking area - Vlaamse Radio en Televisieomroeporganisatie - VRT (Flemish Radio and Television), a member of the EBU. This is the first television series, the development of which was financed by Croatian Audiovisual Centre, to be shown by a broadcaster in Western Europe.

The producer and creator, Dario Vince, told us that the series has so far been purchased for showing on two televisions in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. 'We believe that despite the difficult financial situation of public television in Serbia and Slovenia, it should sooner or later appear there as well. The placement of the series in Belgium could help us, and others who are trying to develop ambitious drama projects here, to draw the attention of the wider world market. We are also helped by our Swedish distributors, who were the first to recognize the potential of the series and believe that it should be offered to a wider market. Of course, the "pitching" behind a serious western distribution company looks more serious than when a small producer from a country that does not yet exist on the international TV content market does so.'

Dario Vince adds that he set the basic story of the second season and that he developed the script together with Saša Podgorelec and Ivan Turković Krnjak. 'In the very end, the director of the second season, Goran Dukić, joined us. HAVC recognized the potential and seriousness of the project and helped us in its development, primarily with public support and funding. It is a great pity that there is still not enough synchronicity with TV companies that would enable the time planning of TV projects because HAVC wanted, and I am convinced it could help even more. It is of great importance that the system of script development and project development that HAVC managed to impose on cinematography begins to spread to television projects because from the professional, artistic, and business side, it's simply a necessity for smart project management. I sincerely hope that HAVC will soon announce a competition for TV projects again, so that we may have the opportunity to realize the full potential of such cooperation in the third season', Vince concluded.

By the way, this series, whose production was financed by HRT, will not be synchronized, but titled, so that Belgian viewers will hear Croatian actors in Croatian. As for the future life of the series, the wish of the author of the series and Ring Production is to complete the planned trilogy in partnership with HRT, and shoot the final ten episodes of the last, third season of the series.

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There is no silence for "Rest in Peace", more untold stories await them

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Where will Lucija Car character go after this exhausting and emotional season finale? Where will the story go in the third season? Is season three even possible? These are questions that are not easy to answer.

"Wire in the Blood", "Forbrydelsen", "Engrenages", "Luther", "Salamander", "Bron/Broen", "Line of Duty", "The Shadow Line"... A string of series that "Rest in peace" successfully continues.

After the season two finale, I have to say that the comparison is by no means exaggerated, and also look at possible further perspectives in the development of the series itself as well as the character of Lucija Car. Lucija threatens to become something like Harry Hole, Hieronymus Bosch and Sara Lund in one, but while they are all primarily detectives Lucia cannot escape her journalistic background. At times she reminds of Annika Bengtzon, also a reporter from the Swedish author Lisa Marklund, and at times she is so close to the Croatian reality that Sweden remains (like for many Croatian emigrants) only a utopian ideal from the pages of the sales catalog. It is difficult to play that combination well, and the authors of the second season of "Rest in Peace" achieved the most they could, in my opinion, within the budget. "Rest in Peace" is the first Croatian series in which we could see a double ending, the first series in which parallel stories were expertly unraveled, but also the first series in which (in a production-demanding way) an effective ending was shown with some things unexplained. In the perspective of a possible third season, I can only say that the right move has been made.

Where will Lucija Car character go after this exhausting and emotional season finale? Where will the story go in the third season? Is season three even possible? These are questions that are not easy to answer.

Nikica Gilić once said that the purpose of public television is to ensure a quality program. Public television, unlike commercial television, should provide its subscribers with a program worth their TV subscription, and HRT has avoided doing so for years. It is clear that due to the limitations we live in, BBC quality production cannot be expected, but it is good to know that a top-notch screenplay, choosing life instead of polished topics, and a more ambitious (not to say more intelligent) approach can make a product as good as those listed above. "Rest in Peace" is in that sense a truly pioneering series. We can look at the first season as a kind of procedural test balloon. Each episode had its own story, loosely connected by the background action. That background action came to the fore this season, and the series itself underwent a transformation on several levels. The effectiveness of the second season, and especially its ending, can be seen in the closing scene of the final episode. Lucija, surrounded by ghosts of the Globin (but also her own) past, realizes all the sinisterness of that statement from the season's teaser: "In order for the dead to rest in peace, the living must pay a high price." The price Lucija paid (and still pays) is the price of her mistakes and estimates that allowed the situation to escalate. This escalation, however, could be sensed at the end of the penultimate episode because, as the old saying goes, the road to hell is often paved with good intentions.

It is precisely in this segment, that the evolution of the series gains its full momentum. In this format, it seeks the viewer's participation, seeks constant attention, and insists on speculation about the final outcome. Such a format is something that the Croatian audience is not used to from domestic production and is so different from the first season that it is not surprising that critics said that the first season was "more understandable." Certainly, the first season was a warm-up for such an intriguing format of season two, but it should be noted that in this format, the interaction of the quality of the creators of the series and the TV company itself is required. In this format, the series deserves several reruns during the broadcast. In some future pay-per-view service, "Rest in Peace" could become a real hit because the series, as written in the second season, was created for such viewing.

Critics of the series have varied throughout the season. From those according to the dialect I referred to in the previous text, to the appearance of celebrities (Gustafi, Alen Vitasović) and the "illogical" behavior of the heroes in their presence to the origin of some folk songs performed by the group "Veja". Haters will hate, the proverb says. Criticizing Lucy’s drunken behavior in the first episode is only possible if you’ve never seen a drunk person with psychological trauma and if you’re looking for something worth criticizing with a magnifying glass. As for the origin of folk songs, oral literature has one specificity. Namely, it is recorded and spread by transmission. It is very possible that someone on the trip heard, recorded, and brought the song to Istria, and a motif that is not specific to the environment remained (gendarmes slaughter women in the song "Anka"). Sometimes it is necessary to know the nature of the media being criticized before criticizing. Since these are the only objections I had the opportunity to hear during the broadcast, I will conclude that "Rest in Peace" successfully transformed the series from a procedural format into a more detailed and extensive one, where the choice of Istria as a location is truly commendable.

Further elaboration of the theme of the series was seen in the excellent dynamics of the relationship between Lucija Car and Mate Šušnjara. The already mentioned big plus in the acting of Dragan Despot (who, in accordance with his last name, resembles Stalin in some shots) was even bigger as the season drew to a close. The dynamics of these two actors are especially strong in the series itself, and until the very end of the series, the actors kept only two (somewhat) weak points. Despite the improvement, Anja Šovagović Despot did not fully adapt to the series, nor was she too convincing in the key moments of the ninth episode, and Jelena Miholjević as Zora Agnezi remained just as pale as in the first season. We recently had the opportunity to watch her in the series "Black-White World" and I find it hard to get the impression that she actually acted in the same way in two completely different series, with a different approach and theme. Luckily, her role this season is secondary and she didn't get the space as she did before. The appearance of Lucija's brother, whose character was unconvincing and problematic in the first season, is also commendable. Here we see him older and older, but still with an emphasis on the disability complex which, given the potential of the character in the main plot, should not remain his main feature. It would be interesting to see him as a counterweight to Lucia's mental disorder in the third season, but also as a possible source of motivation for the expected depressive black hole she could fall into after the tenth episode. Ines Polić emphasized the possibility of Lucija's mental decline, and a very emotional scene in which both Nina Violić and Judita Franković excelled could resonate strongly in the third season. Here I see the strong role of Lucija’s brother, as I am still waiting to see in the feature series a person with a disability who will turn his disability into an advantage.

The tenth and final episode of the series deserves a special passage in the text. Production-wise, probably the most demanding episode of the season brought Lucija Car to the threshold of facing truths that she did not want to know, but also forced her to face herself. The relationship between her and Šušnjara culminated in that episode and it was completely clear that these two characters closed the circle started by the prison scene in the fourth episode. As much as it was disastrous for Lucija's self-confidence, it is clear how Mate Šušnjara respects her, but also that the two characters are not so different as could be concluded at the very beginning of the first season.

Goran Dukić is certainly the winner of the series, he gave it a darker and more human tone, so the scenes (so far avoided due to public morals) seemed closer to real life than the theatricality we are used to. "Rest in Peace" is, as the name suggests, quite a down-to-earth series. A series in which blood on asphalt is nothing new or unusual. A series in which nothing is a taboo topic. I will emphasize once again that I hope that it will be just the beginning of some new winds in domestic TV production and that the forced and theatrical sitcoms will really "rest in peace". There is a breath of optimism after these two months in these waters and I must say that after a long time I am looking forward to the waves that could rise after the broadcast of two demanding domestic projects on national television.

It would be a shame to ignore them and get back to that toadstool when the horizon towards which we can sail finally opens up. I hope for the third season of the series "Rest in Peace", just as I hope that the plot could move to the often neglected Gorski Kotar, which also has its own stories and legends such as "Demon of Gorski Kotar Forests". You will forgive me for this outpouring of local patriotism, everyone has the right to at least a drop. The third season opens new vistas and has completely different potentials. I hope it doesn’t cross roads with some smartass to postpone it out of his own complex or helplessness.

Let Lucija Car rest a little. What she experienced is not easy. I rely on her to tell us new "untold stories", just the kind that everyone likes to keep quiet about.

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