BEYOND RIGHTS HIT "HALIFAX: RETRIBUTION" GOES TO THE US

Beyond Rights has sold the gripping psychological thriller "Halifax: Retribution" to PBS Distribution for transmission on the PBS Masterpiece Channel on Prime Video in the US. The new series sees Rebecca Gibney reprising her iconic role as forensic psychiatrist Jane Halifax from "Halifax F.P.", a series of 21 award-winning, feature-length dramas that ran on Australian television from 1994 to 2002.

The procedural drama"Halifax: Retribution" (8x60) produced by Beyond Lonehand for Nine Network (Australia) has proved both ratings and critical success this year. It remains the highest-rated new Australian drama of 2020, winning its primetime slot across all the commercial FTA networks for every episode and securing more than a million viewers each time, according to official consolidated viewing figures. In addition, the series was recently nominated in the Best Drama Series category for the prestigious 2020 AACTA Awards (Australian Academy for Cinema, Television and Arts), while Rebecca Gibney was nominated for Best Actress in a Drama Series.

Sherry Fynbo, EVP Sales for North America at Beyond Rights, was responsible for negotiating the deal with PBS Distribution. She comments: “Through its Masterpiece brand, PBS has long provided a home for some of the world’s best and most enduring scripted series. We are thrilled that 'Halifax: Retribution' will now sit alongside its impressive collection of leading English-language dramas on the PBS Masterpiece channel on Amazon’s Prime Video.”

Mikael Borglund, Beyond International’s CEO and MD, executive produced both the original "Halifax F.P." titles and "Halifax: Retribution". He adds: “It was a real pleasure to bring so many of the original team back together, including creator and writer Roger Simpson, to see how Jane Halifax’s life had unfolded over the past two decades. Fans of the original series, which sold all over the world and featured everyone from Hugh Jackman and Hugo Weaving to Guy Pierce and Frances O’Connor, had been waiting patiently for this series, while it's very contemporary themes around data mining and personal freedoms, in addition to its strong characters and smart standalone script, are successfully attracting new audiences. I’m sure it will prove very popular in the US.”

JANE HALIFAX IS BACK

It’s been twenty years since Jane Halifax (Rebecca Gibney) worked in the field, but a sniper is terrorising the city and Commander Tom Saracen (Antony La Paglia) urgently needs her assistance. Jane comes to realise that the killer’s invisibility to the surveillance cameras and his sophisticated hacking skills hold the clue to what he wants. Though Jane dismisses a threatening letter as the work of a crank, other things are not so easy to ignore. And when her partner, Ben (Craig Hall) is brutally murdered, Jane is forced to confront a terrifying possibility: that the killer could be after her.