Iceland’s Glassriver is gearing up to shoot the second season of its hit series Black Sands, from showrunner Baldvin Z.
The partners again on board for the second season are Iceland’s Channel 2, All3Media, which handles international rights, Belgium’s Lunanime and VRT, and Finland’s YLE.
The first season sold well – including to Viaplay with rights in several European territories and the US (where the show launched on July 20), Alibi for the UK, Disney+ for the Netherlands and Luxembourg, Canal+ for Poland, SBS in Australia, AXN Mystery Channel in Japan, Pumpkin Film in China, and Upstream Media in the Philippines.
The show’s writers are Baldvin Z, Ragnar Jónsson and Aldís Amah Hamilton, now also joined by Elías Kofoed Hansen.
Arnbjörg Hafliðadóttir is producing the eight-part dark romantic crime drama, which will shoot from August.
The character-driven story is about a police detective, played by Aldís Amah Hamilton, who is forced to confront her past as she investigates a series of mysterious deaths in her hometown on the south coast of Iceland. The second season will follow her as she raises her infant daughter and struggles with postpartum depression.
Baldvin Z says, “The second part of Black Sands picks up right where season one ended. The first episode feels more like episode nine than episode one of a new series. That’s why we prefer to call it ‘part two’ instead of ‘series two’.”
He added, “It has been very important to us to be able to accurately portray the brutal realism of what police officers have to deal with in their everyday duties and the scripts have benefited tremendously from our collaboration with Ragnar Jónsson, one of the show’s creators and who also worked on Black Sands season one. Ragnar has worked as a bloodstain pattern specialist with the Reykjavík Metropolitan police department and is one of the country’s leading forensic investigators.”
Baldvin Z had directed the whole first season, and for season two Álfheiður Marta Kjartansdóttir (first AD on the first series who has also worked on The Minister) and Erlendur Sveinsson (award-winning short Kanari) are also directing two episodes each, alongside Baldvin’s four episodes.
New cast joining for season two include Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir, whose credits include Woman At War, Sólveig Arnarsdóttir, Ólafí Hrönn and Erla Ruth.
Baldvin Z has explained that the second season will be the finale of Black Sands. He told Screen, “I really wanted to do the second season because we did map out the whole story in the beginning. It felt like a half-done project. Especially because in the end it tells an important story, one that is rarely told in TV shows like Black Sands.”
Glassriver’s other series include Fractures, Ordinary People, Journey, My Funeral and the forthcoming As Long As We Live.
Baldvin Z’s past feature films include local box office hits Let Me Fall, which premiered in Toronto, Jitters and Life In A Fishbowl.
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