Ring in the new year with thought-provoking titles from Topic.

 

Agatha Christie’s Hjerson
SWEDEN
Season 1 Finale airs on January 5th

Follow this meta-drama all the way to the end. A new wave Christie adaptation takes narrative elements from her fiction and creates a present-day mystery. Sven Hjerson is a modern reimagining of a character from within the mind of the character Ariadne Oliver, a criminal profiler who went through an abrupt retirement for undisclosed reasons. A trash TV producer decides to bring him out of retirement for the last shot at a serious prime-time show, and on the way, they end up on the case of a shipboard murder. Produced by the team behind Midsommar and Before We Die, this meta-commentary feeds into the current Christie-fandom renaissance – The Mousetrap is about to make its Broadway debut after 70 years on the West End. Join the fandom before the finale.

Christian, season 1
ITALY
Coming to Topic: January 5th
Weekly episodes on Thursdays

What if God was one of us? More specifically, what if a mobster with a heart of gold took on the powers of salvation? Sure, it’s a bit of a wacky premise, but Christian makes a surprisingly inspiring savior. Operating out of Rome’s outskirts, doing business for a neighborhood boss, he suddenly finds himself with the infamous stigmata on his palms. Though he can no longer do his dirty neighborhood deeds, he can heal the injuries of others. Will these powers be the thing that uplifts him from a life of crime? Inspired by a graphic novel, the Italian Post described it as “a series balanced above madness.”

Cartel Land
UNITED STATES
Coming to Topic: January 12

Stepping away from the headlines and into reality, Cartel Land offers viewers an opportunity to understand the dangerous drug trade on the Mexico-USA border. Vigilante groups who fight against the drug cartels lead the action, specifically the Arizona Border Recon and the Autodefensas. One attempts to drive a cartel out of the Michocan state while another works to stop a cartel from doing trade in the US. Nominated for Best Documentary Academy Award in 2016, this film will educate as much as it entertains. Director Matthew Heineman won the Best Director Award at the 2015 Sundance film Festival.

The Silence, Season 1
CROATIA/UKRAINE
Coming to Topic: January 19

Anonymous girls are dying, but the investigation stalls as the powers that be consider the deaths to be accidental – a drowning, an overdose, and a car accident. This series is based on a true story, immortalized in a work of narrative nonfiction by an investigative journalist, Draco Hedl. In the series, only when a journalist and a politician’s wife join the detective on the case do the three begin to link the deaths to the trafficking of underage girls throughout Eastern Europe. The three must decide if it’s worth the risk to their careers to continue investigating when the crimes become connected to the powerful in their midst.

I Think I Like It Here
CANADA
Coming to Topic: January 26

In this Topic Original Film, a recently dumped woman begins to pack up the remnants of her life from her formerly-shared apartment. As anyone who’s been through a tough breakup knows, the process is an emotional one, and the objects begin to trigger forgotten memories of the nine-year relationship. Watch as the protagonist comes to terms with unprocessed memories and begins to look toward the future.

Whitewash
CANADA
Coming to Topic: January 26

As pure as the fresh driven snow? Not so fast in this darkly comic thriller. Thomas Haden Church stars as a snowplow driver who commits vehicular manslaughter while plowing under the influence. Church’s character, Bruce, escapes into the woods to evade detection, by authorities, and in a series of flashbacks, it becomes apparent that the relationship between the Bruce and the man he killed was more complex than initially assumed. There’s no way your winter will be as depressing as Bruce’s.

 

We’re adding more and more of our most popular series with English dubbing –Salamander Season 1 premieres in English on January 19th, and The Killing Season 1 premieres with English dubbing on January 26th. Check to see if more of your favorites are available in English.

For our Canadian viewers, the Swedish true-crime series, The Dark Heart, will be available for streaming in January. The five-episode series stars Gustav Lindh (Queen of Hearts), Clara C. Drake (Gåsmamman), Peter Andersson (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo trilogy), and Aliette Opheim (Caliphate) in the lead. It is a psychological thriller following how an old family feud clashes with a young, forbidden love story, leading to a deadly tragedy, ultimately solved by a private investigator who obsesses over the case. The story is based on journalist Joakim Palmkvist’s book The Dark Heart: A True Story of Greed, Murder, and an Unlikely Investigator.