BY LAW
Creator/Producer/Director: Hari Šečić
Production company: Association Spektar
Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Format: 45' x 8
Genre: Crime
BY LAW is a police drama series set in modern-day Sarajevo. It tells the story of young detective who is solving crimes, realizing that the main problem of the society is corrupted system he takes on.
Case of missing Roma girl is the first one for young detective AMIR. He is ambitious and righteous, believes in justice. As he tries to solve this case, he learns that he lives in the society that is full of discrimination and corruption. The missing girl case is not a priority for his bosses, neither is a murder of a Middle Eastern immigrant, who was going through Bosnia on his way to Western Europe. After a rich tycoon kid gets heavily beaten, huge pressure is imposed on police by politics, to make this case a priority. Amir keeps working on a missing girl case, that turns into a murder case after the girl is found dead. He discovers that a member of the Parliament Assembly is involved in the murder, as someone from the police forces tries to blame it on immigrants, fixing the evidences. Working on the assault on a rich kid case, Amir, together with his mentor KOVA, an old detective who is waiting for his retirement by drinking most of the time, learn that the assaulted kid raped and heavily beat a girl in the past. His father used all of his money and power to bribe corrupted legal system and save his son from prosecution. Raped girl's brother was the one who assaulted him, after losing his faith in the legal system. Kova suddenly starts helping Amir to solve the Roma girl murder case, after regaining his sense of justice and realizing that he had been swimming downstream in the corrupted legal system. They both find themselves under all kind of pressure, fighting the corruption in the police force and corrupted political system. As they try to reopen the case of a raped girl, and solve the one of murdered Roma girl, everything turns against them.
CineLink Drama - pitch presentation
HARI ŠEČIĆ / IMDB
HARI ŠEČIĆ was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia. He graduated from Film, TV and Theatre directing department at Academy of Performing Arts Sarajevo. He also studied Art History and World Literature at Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo. In 2014 he spent one semester as an exchange student at University of Missouri St. Louis, USA, where he also had his Academic Training working as an associate editor on documentary OTA BENGA by Niyi Coker, Jr. His documentary SEARCHING FOR HOME premiered at BH Film Festival program at Sarajevo Film Festival in 2016. He currently works at Bosnian National TV.
Creator’s statement
The story of the series BY LAW, is a story of a young detective that has just started his career and has a strong sense of justice and dedication to it. As he tried hard to work on the cases, and stick to the law, he starts learning that he is surrounded by corrupted system. The corruption is everywhere, even in police forces and justice system that he believed in. Soon he realizes that, in order to deal with crimes, he needs to fight against this system too. His mentor is an old detective, who lost his moral compass years ago, and has been waiting for his retirement, while at the same time kept his eyes closed to the corruption that surrounded him. AMIR's righteousness and ambition to fight for justice, awakens KOVA and he joins him on his path. Together, they try to fight the system.
Where are we at?
Estimated production budget for the first season: 2,000.000 EUR
Financing in place: 2,500.00 EUR
Production timeline
Developing: Script May 2022 - September 2022
Fundrasing: September 2022 - May 2023
Pre-production: May 2023 - September 2023
Production: September 2023
Production company profile
ASSOCIATION SPEKTAR, Sarajevo, is an association for art, culture and sport that is producing independent film and theater works, with goal to promote young artists.