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Even before it became a primetime sensation last fall, Greek drama “The Beach” had all the elements of a smash hit. Set during the summer of free love in a hippie commune on the island of Crete, the sun-splashed series takes a dark turn with a mysterious murder, setting into motion events that have captivated Greek audiences across more than one hundred episodes to date.

For the creative team at Foss Productions, which co-produced the show with public broadcaster Ert, “The Beach” was an opportunity to push the envelope in a way that hadn’t been done before on Greek television.

“We thought, ‘Let’s try to approach a long-running show in the same way that we approach a mini-series,’” says Orestis Plakias, of the Athens-based outfit behind shows like the Netflix original series “Maestro in Blue” and 2023 Series Mania competition selection “Milky Way.”

“We wanted to introduce something different to the long-running shows,...

Beta Film has acquired international sales rights to the Greek drama series “The Beach,” a primetime sensation for Greek public broadcaster Ert, the Munich-based production and distribution powerhouse announced on the eve of Mipcom.

The 24-part one hour series begins on an idyllic commune on the shores of Crete in 1969, where love and freedom intertwine, until a murder exposes the messy entanglements spurred on by the hippie residents. Yet even the straightlaced police officer assigned to investigate the crime finds he can’t resist the temptations of paradise.

Stefanos Blatsos (“Love After”) directs the hit drama set at Matala Beach in Crete with scripts from George Chrysovitsanos and Kostas Gerampinis. The cast includes Danai Michalaki (“Wild Bees”), starring as Hypatia, a London-based doctor coming back to her hometown, where she meets Harry, played by Dimitris Mothonaios (“A Day in the Life of a Teddy Bear”).

Since launching on Ert in early September,...

If you wanted to gauge how far the growing Greek TV industry has come in just a few short years, you’d have to look no further than last month in Lille, France, where Series Mania offered a splashy showcase for the Mediterranean nation’s sudden rise.

The prestigious French fest opened with Amazon Prime Video’s “Greek Salad,” director Cédric Klapisch’s follow-up to his beloved “Spanish Apartment” trilogy that chose Athens as the setting for its portrait of contemporary Europe at a crossroads. Meanwhile, a Greek series bowed in the festival’s international competition for the first time: Vasilis Kekatos’ “Milky Way.”

Directed by the short film Palme d’Or winner and inviting comparisons to “Euphoria” from festivalgoers, the envelope-pushing teen drama (pictured) is part of a bold new wave of Greek storytelling that reflects an industry striving to reach new heights. “We have amazing talents in Greece.

Greece, where the death rate due to the coronavirus outbreak has been among among the lowest in Europe, is looking to lure more international productions by raising its cash rebates from 35% to 40% just as cameras are already rolling there on what is being touted as the first post-pandemic European co-production to start up.

“Greece is quite a success story in these particularly difficult times because of (anti-coronavirus) measures that were taken early on,” said Venia Vergou, director of the Hellenic Film Commission during a virtual Cannes Market panel.

The country was on lockdown between March 3 and May 4, and just one week later shooting had already resumed on hit Greek TV series “Wild Bees,” a period piece about three farmer sisters who live in a small, fictional village in the Thessalian flatland in the late 1950s, which was the first Greek production that started filming after the pandemic.

The scheduled production output of “Wild Bees,...