Since the Russian attack, solidarity with Ukraine has been high at all levels. The broadcaster ZDFneo is now bringing the Ukrainian thriller series “Hide and Seek – Dangerous Hiding Game” to its program. It is exciting and well worth seeing.
An apartment in a high-rise settlement, father and daughter play hide and seek. The father counts to five, then the daughter is gone. Completely gone, disappeared from the apartment. What happened?
The dark Ukrainian thriller series “Hide and Seek – Dangerous Hide and Seek” revolves around the kidnapping of several children. The focus is on a duo of investigators struggling with the shadows of their own past. ZDFneo shows the exciting, eight-part series on Saturday from 10 p.m. From June 12, it will also be available for 30 days in the ZDF media library.
Father Jevgenij (Oleksandr Kobzar) is desperate, he alerts the police. Little Alina (Azalia Tkachuk) is nowhere to be found. The police suspect the father of having something to do with the girl’s disappearance. The mood among the inspectors is depressed, they quickly got a new boss. Varta (Yulia Abdel Fattakh) is supposed to solve the case together with Maksim (Pyotr Rykov), who has just been demoted. The involuntary duo has to pull themselves together.
Alina’s father insists that the apartment was locked. Varta believes him, unlike Maksim. There was always trouble with the ex-mother-in-law. Because she is a member of the sect “Church of the Immaculate Birth”, where she sometimes took her granddaughter. The father didn’t like that.
The situation is coming to a head. When officers observe the block of flats, a fatal incident occurs. Then a video surfaced on the internet. To see: Alina in a basement room with a sheet of paper in her hands. There are four digits on it. The investigators are puzzled. Shortly thereafter, a second child disappears. Bogdan, the son of the singer Didi, is kidnapped from the backstage dressing room. Unlike Alina, Bogdan demands a ransom.
Bringing this series into its own program was a remarkable and worthwhile decision by ZDFneo, not just for reasons of solidarity, but also in terms of content and series technology. An unusual plot in a dark, cold atmosphere, backed by carefully selected music, played by actors unknown in this country. Conclusion: an exciting project.
Co-producer Kateryna Vyshnevska says it is more important than ever “that Ukrainian stories reach as many people as possible to enable the preservation of Ukraine’s cultural heritage”. The series was filmed in the town of Enerhodar, where the largest European nuclear power plant is located. “It was shelled and is now controlled by the Russian invaders as part of their illegitimate war against Ukraine. But Enerhodar is and will remain Ukrainian.”
