Czech Television launches new detective serial, "Lynch", about the murder of a young Romani man

On 22 October, Czech Television broadcast the first episode of its new serial, “Lynch” (Lynč). The eight-part series tells the story of a fictional small Czech town of “Buchnov” where a young Romani man named Denis has been brutally murdered.

A documentary filmmaker named Tomáš, who has known Denis since childhood, comes to town to investigate. The subject of racial intolerance and deeply-rooted prejudice in the small town is one of the serial’s main plot lines.

News server Romea.cz is publishing interviews with the creators of the series and some of the actors portraying its important characters. Romani Studies scholar Renata Berkyová provided expert consultancy to the film and discussed various scenes with directors Klára Jůzová and Jan Bártek so as to make them as authentic as possible.

The idea of bringing such a fraught subject to life was born at a student workshop led by the American screenwriter Harold Apter, who also teaches screenwriting at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts in the Writing for Screen and Television Faculty. Apter has been behind projects such as “Star Trek: The Next Generation” or “Walker, Texas Ranger”.

During his film workshops, several pilots were developed with various subject matters, and the best of them was chosen for production. The “Lynch” series is based on that winning pilot.

Producer Jan Maxa told public broadcaster Czech Television that “The project is unique in the Czech context from several perspectives: It was developed as a collaboration between Czech Television, film schools, and departments at FAMU [Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague], JAMU [Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno] and UTB [Tomas Bata University in Zlín]. Second, the directors and script developers were mostly young people, students or recent college graduates working under the direction of the very experienced Harold Apter. Third, it’s a combination of a crime miniseries with a social drama, not an easy genre and one that is not frequently seen in Czech output. Finally, this is the first television serial ever co-produced with the ARTE television production company from their headquarters in Strasbourg.”