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Netflix orders Brazilian thriller

Streamer Netflix has ordered its latest Brazilian original, eight-episode thriller The Faction, which will join the service next year.

Erik Barmack

Set in the 90s, the drama follows a female lawyer who discovers her missing brother has been jailed and is a leader of a criminal organisation. She is forced to inform on him by the police but begins to question her own values.

The series is produced by City of God creator O2 Filmes and was created by Pedro Morelli, who will also serve as director and showrunner. Andrea Barata Ribeiro and Bel Berlinck will produce.

“The series invites the audience to explore the inhospitable prison universe of São Paulo of the 90s through an electrifying dramatic thriller,” said Erik Barmack, VP of original content for Netflix.

“In a country where people have grown used to appalling levels of violence, The Faction addresses the contradictory Brazilian reality as a way of better understanding the origin of the problem,” said Morelli.

Netflix has been steadily ramping up its slate of international originals over the past year, with Germany’s Dark, Denmark’s The Rain and Spain’s La Casa De Papel (Money Heist) all emerging.

In May, Barmack told C21’s Drama Summit West event in LA that the company would “lean into risk” more with its international programming. Netflix would rely on its “self-belief and courage” to decide which shows will work internationally, he added.

“A lot of these shows we anticipated could travel, but you don’t know. So we want to, as the next evolution of what we’re doing, believe that a big segment of our shows can be global shows, regardless of the language they are in,” he said.

“The big ‘Aha!’ moment for us was when a number of shows out of Europe were big in their own territories but also travelled to Argentina, Brazil, Korea and so on – travelling as well as US shows, if not better.”

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