Frontwards

When a rational homicide detective starts finding the same body over and over again, and discovers connections between the cases and her family, she must investigate the nature of her own reality.

A rational homicide detective Kamila keeps finding the body of the same person over and over again – a young man named Richard. Only Kamila sees the repetition and the more she’s finding out who Richard is, the more connections between Richard and her family resurface. In order to protect her loved ones and her sanity, Kamila must dwell deeper into the mystery. Against her will, the series of uncanny murders become an investigation into Kamila’s own consciousness, own memory and her own soul.

KAMILA is a homicide detective and a single mother to a teenager she likes to call BUBBLE. Every day she’s torn between her job and her family, afraid that she might fail in one, another, or both. She lives in a sprawling metropolitan city with a strong vibe of the 1990s and it’s this immersive environment where she must face a major disruption of her reality. For a yet unknown reason, she starts finding the body of the same person all over again - a young man named RICHARD. Every time Kamila and her colleague PETER solve Richard’s murder, another Richard is found again elsewhere in the city. His physical appearance is the same, but his background is different. And what is more disturbing, only Kamila remembers the previous cases. As the pattern keeps repeating over and over again, Kamila’s anxieties grow, and her world crumbles. While in each episode clueless Peter and the rest of the squad are treating Richard’s murder as the case of the week, Kamila is solving the case of the season. While Peter’s head is at “whodunnit”, Kamila wants to find out “to whom it was done”. While only Kamila remembers the previous cases, she finds more patterns in the way the bodies are reappearing. The further she delves into this mystery, the more connections between Richard and her family surface. As Bubble is reaching puberty and exploring who he really is as boys his age usually do, he’s unintentionally picking up Richard’s character traits. With every new case solved, Bubble comes up with something new - listening to Richard’s music, wearing the same clothes, and getting the same tattoo. His teenage angst turns out to be a real nightmare… Bubble is becoming Richard. Kamila wants to prevent this in order not to lose her son, but reasoning with an already alienated teenager is hard. As Kamila’s work and family life keep blending together in this disturbing manner, she’s forced to question the nature of her own reality. In order to move forward and protect her loved ones, Kamila doubts the most precious thing she has - her sanity. Thus, the series of uncanny murders are turning into an investigation into her own consciousness, memory and soul… Frontwards is a narratively original crime show, where the serialized and procedural principles are in a clash. This high-concept miniseries is exploring the theme of memory - the main building block of our reality. But at its core, Frontwards is a story of a mother and her son.

Director’s note:
Frontwards will be an exciting weekly journey concerning bizarre homicides being solved by a very unreliable heroine narrator. The setting is “any-city” of the burgeoning Central Europe at the break of the past millennia. Old buildings and shabby, communist-era monuments and buildings are being pushed aside by the new glass and metal sky-scrapers, the petty crime is being replaced by the brutal, most graphic cases. Analogue information still exists, but the digital / internet era is here as well along with the Y2K paranoia. Such is the world of Kamila, the main detective. I regard the series not as a six-episode “event” nor as a six-hour movie. It is a six-step procedural into the mind of the main character. The drama and suspense will be on the weekly menu of each episode. However, the central question: the memory and its importance to self-worth in this very unstable world will be what controls each aspect of the storytelling.

Producer’s note:
Frontwards is an intended quality TV 6-part miniseries. Its creative pedigree is once again very unusual for a Slovak-authored project in this format genre. Writer Lukas Sigmund developed the basic storyline/bible and the pilot script while attending the Serial Eyes program (2019/2020). From its conception the project has been mentored by the biggest names in international TV writing. Many of the esteemed show-runners praised Sigmund’s approach to the story; being wildly original while respecting the current needs of the broadcasters (terrestrial or otherwise). Classically set “race against time” takes place on two levels – the detective investigation and personal fear of losing one’s memory. “Frontwards” is also a story of a mother-son relationship, loss of one’s identity through the loss of one’s memories. We strongly believe that this material has all of the attributes of what is called “an event television”.