South (''Portuguese: '') is a Portuguese police noir, in nine episodes, created by Edgar Medina and Guilherme Mendonça, directed by Ivo M. Ferreira and produced by Arquipélago Filmes. Soundtrack by

Dead Combo Dead Combo were a Portuguese band, consisting of Tó Trips and Pedro Gonçalves. Dead Combo played mostly instrumental music with a wide range of influences, such as Latin American music, Spaghetti Western film soundtracks, fado, African music, b ...

. The series premiered on the 28 September 2019, on

RTP1 RTP1 (''RTP um'') is a Portuguese free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP). It is the company's flagship television channel, and is known for broadcasting mainst ...

, and broadcast ended on the 23 November 2019.

Synopsis

A nihilistic and socially awkward police inspector of the Criminal Investigation Unit probes a string of suspicious deaths by drowning in the Tagus River. As the investigation becomes murkier, help comes from an unexpected source. Meanwhile, the country reels from an intense economic and social crisis.

Reception

''South'' series was recognized as "a milestone for Portuguese audiovisual landscape", being the first national television series to be selected for presentation in the CoPro Series in 2018, a section of

Berlinale The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...

's Co-Production Market, integrating the list of 8 international drama series to be presented in the festival's co-production market. In 2019, the series returned to the

Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the fest ...

to show the first episode, in the Drama Series Days (EFM / Berlinale) section. The nine episodes of the series were shown between 28 September and 23 November 2019, on RTP1. The series was recognized by national and international critics, having been praised for its technical and narrative quality, considered the best Portuguese series of the year and equated with the best series produced in the world.

"That the series was screened in Berlin is proof South stands alongside the top-quality TV dramas now being produced around the world. All eyes will now be on Portugal to see whether the country can follow Spain's footsteps in establishing itself as a storytelling force on the international stage." Michael Pickard, ''Drama Quarterly'', October 2019 "The biggest surprise comes unexpectedly from Portugal with a very well structured thriller and, above all, very illustrative of the serious Portuguese economic situation five years ago, without hesitating to criticize all levels thanks to the great character of Humberto, a loser who has nothing more to lose and will go deep to discover the network behind that first crime." Lorenzo Mejino, ''El Diario Vasco'', December 2019 "And, what matters most: people, people from Lisbon, that we see so little of in our novels, movies or newspapers. A series called ''South'', as if an appeal to depart, when its story, sound and forms, and people above all, grab us to stay. (...) I suspect another game will be coming to our homes in the upcoming weeks: Will the screenwriters have the nerve, during the next season to be filmed in 2020, to remove from our 2021 Saturdays' company, those who we came to love in 2019? The viewers anguish for fear of the disappearance of any of those artists, in which we will find good characters, is an extra bonus from ''South''." Ferreira Fernandes, ''Diário de Notícias'', October 2019 "It was also in the middle of Lisbon's transition that Edgar Medina started to write ''South'', the best Portuguese series of 2019 and one of the best of the year (RTP1). Lisbon is a noir detective story in the troika's ballad that is South, and we can feel the urgency that Guilherme Mendonça, Rui Cardoso Martins e Ivo M. Ferreira felt to tell the history of a town that has already started to fade from memory - the same one that lived in this decade, before tourists, Airbnb and cruises, a ghost in the pre-Web Summit machine of Sócrates and Ricardo Salgado, populated by entrepreneurs, policemen, bankers and politicians." Joana Amaral Cardoso, ''Público'', December 2019

On 24 August 2020, the series became available in the catalog of the streaming service

HBO Portugal HBO Portugal was a streaming service of video on demand under fixed subscription offered by HBO Max#Nordic countries and Spain, HBO Max Nordic, which provides a catalogue of own productions of the American cable television channel HBO, a subsidia ...

. In 2020, the series was distinguished with the Sophia Award from the Portuguese Academy of Cinema for Best Series / Television and the Authors Award from the Portuguese Society of Authors for Best Fiction Program. ''Sul'' also reached the shortlist of nominees for the Ibero-American Cinema awards, Premios Platino Xcaret, in the category of Best TV Series (among other categories).

Cast

* Adriano Luz as Humberto * Jani Zhao as Alice * Afonso Pimentel as Matilha *

Margarida Vila-Nova Margarida Vila-Nova (born 6 June 1983) is a Portuguese actress. She had her first appearances in television in the programs of Filipe La Féria for RTP (1990 - Grande Noite, 1994 - Cabaret). She received formation in the theater with Michael ...

as Mafalda *

Ivo Canelas Ivo Canelas (born 23 December 1973) is a Portuguese theatre and film actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern me ...

as Pastor Santoro * Beatriz Batarda as Journalist * Nuno Lopes as inspector Rebelo * Margarida Marinho as Rosário *

José Raposo José Sá Raposo (born 3 February 1963) is a Portuguese actor and producer. Biography He began in the children's theater, by the hand of Francisco Nicholson in 1981 at the Teatro AdHoc, which company he integrated. He did ''Teatro de Revista ...

as Veríssimo * Adriano Carvalho as Inspector-Chief * Miguel Guilherme as Dário Monteiro * Miguel Seabra as Xavier * Américo Silva as Pedro Chambell

Additional cast

* Francisco Tavares as Real Estate Agent * António Fonseca as Coroner * Maria João Abreu as Alexandra Chambel * Duarte Grilo as Valério * Rita Cabaço as Guida * Andreia Bento as Berta * Eric Santos as Pastor Santoro Henchmen * Paula Só as D. Helena * Estevâo Antunes as Pastor Santoro Henchmen 2 * Paulo Calatré as Inspector Júdice * Jaime Freitas as Inspetor Dâmaso * Leonor Silveira as employment center employee * Pedro Inês as Chico * Isabél Zuaa as Young Smith * Manuel Moreira as Director Plantae\ * Beatriz Menino as Ana * Custódia Gallego as Makeup Artist * João Pedro Mamede as Kiko * Isac Graça as Joka * Filipa Cardoso as Celestina Verónica * Paula Guedes as Mimi * Sara Belo as Ex-wife * Paulo Nery as Mayor * Maria João Pinho as Mayor’s Wife * Guilherme Filipe as Fortunato Santos * Cândido Ferreira as Henrique Maia * Isaac Carvalho as Babysitting Kid * Matita Ferreira as Babysitting Kid 2 * Miguel Nunes as Nuno * Ivo Alexandre as police officer * Lydie Barbara as nurse * Pedro Barbeitos as port security * Raimundo Cosme as churchgoer * Miguel Monteiro as guard * Emanuele Simontacchi * Nicolas Brites

Episodes

References

{{Authority control 2010s crime television series 2019 Portuguese television series debuts Portuguese-language television shows Portuguese drama television series