Power, greed, sex and betrayal: Bad Banks paints a gloomy picture of the most powerful investment bankers in Germany and Luxembourg. After being fired from Crédit International, a prestigious investment bank in Luxembourg, Jana Liekam, a talented young investment banker, is offered a challenging job in Frankfurt under the supervision of Gabriel Fenger, Head of Investment Banking at Deutsche Invest. Jana soon discovers that at the highest level of the investment banking world, success has its price. Lies, betrayal and illegal transactions are part of it.
TRAILER BAD BANKS SEASON 1
TRAILER BAD BANKS SEASON 2
Bad Banks Season 2 will be available on Netflix in March 2020. If you missed Season 1, just read the 25 Facts About Netflix Series Bad Banks (see below).
25 FACTS ABOUT NETFLIX SERIES BAD BANKS
The first scene of Bad Banks is set in Frankfurt, Germany’s financial capital. A nervous crowd queues for a single cashpoint, each customer withdraws the maximum daily amount. When the machine runs empty, the people queueing up erupt into panic.
Change of scene: a hooded figure walks at a brisk pace through the modern financial district, where rioting has already begun. A news reporter announces that a huge bank has collapsed and that the mayor of Leipzig is missing.
The very successful tv series has won various German awards, for instance Best Drama Series 2019, Best TV Production 2018, Best Director (Christian Schwochow), Best Actor in a leading role (Barry Atsma), Best Actress in a supporting role (Désirée Nosbusch) and Best Actor in a supporting role (Albrecht Schuch).
The Bad Banks screenplay was written by Oliver Kienle (37). He is also a film director and has directed a Tatort episode.
Bad Banks was directed by Christian Schwochow (41). He also directed Der Turm, Westen and Deutschstunde.
The tv series was shot in Germany and Luxembourg. It is a German and Luxembourgish coproduction.
The thriller series Bad Banks will soon be available in nearly 40 countries.
Bad Banks was first broadcast in March 2018 on ZDF and ARTE. More than 7 million viewers watched the first TV broadcast in Germany and France.
The series was developed over a period of five years between Germany and Luxembourg with ZDF and ARTE. It also benefited from the support of the Luxembourg Film Fund, the German Motion Picture Fund and the Hessen Film und Medien. Federation Entertainment handles international sales of the series.
Bad Banks Season 2 was shot in Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Barbados and Virgin Islands in Spring 2019. It will be aired in February 2020 on ZDF and ARTE.
CAST BAD BANKS SEASONS 1 AND 2
PAULA BEER (JANA LIEKAM) TRIUMPHS AT VENICE FILM FESTIVAL AT THE AGE OF 21
Paula Beer, who plays Jana Liekam, is a 24-year old German actress who was born in Mainz. Her parents are both abstract painters.
She attended the Montessori school. At the age of eight, she started to take theatre acting classes.
At the age of 14, Paula was discovered by a film agent at her school in Berlin. She was invited to the casting of Poll, a German film directed by Chris Kautz, and got the leading role.
In 2016, she won the Marcello Mastroianni Award at the Venice Film Festival for her lead role in Frantz, a French film directed by François Ozon. In the highly acclaimed drama, she plays a young German woman who falls in love with the French soldier who killed her fiancé in World War I.
Paula Beer avoids social media. She says she prefers to talk to people. Therefore, she doesn’t have any Instagram or Facebook account.
TRAILER: PAULA BEER AND PIERRE NINEY IN FRANTZ
In 2016, Paula Beer won Venice Film Festival’s best new young performer award for her outstanding performance in the French film Frantz.
DÉSIRÉE NOSBUSCH (CHRISTELLE LEBLANC)
Désirée Nosbusch (54) was born in Luxembourg. Her mother is Italian, her father Luxembourgish. German, French and Luxembourgish are her mother tongues. Moreover, she speaks English and Italian fluently.
At the age of 12, she began working as a radio host for Radio Luxembourg. As a teenager and as a young adult, she worked as a TV presenter for various German channels, mainly music and children’s programmes. In 1984, she presented the Eurovision Song Contest in Luxembourg.
In 1981, after playing her first film role in Nach Mitternacht, she went to New York to attend a four-year acting course at the Herbert Berghof studio.
In the US, Désirée Nosbusch changed her name to Désirée Beck, but she never got any important international film roles. Nevertheless, she was successful in Germany and appeared in more than 40 German tv productions.
Désirée Nosbusch posts news on her film career on Instagram.
VIDEO: DÉSIRÉE NOSBUSCH TALKS ABOUT HER ROLE AS CHRISTELLE LEBLANC
BARRY ATSMA WINS TWO PRESTIGIOUS AWARDS AS BEST ACTOR FOR HIS ROLE IN BAD BANKS
Barry Atsma (47) is a Dutch actor who was born in the UK, where he spent part of his childhood.
In 2013, he played the lead role in Van Gogh, een huis voor Vincent, a four-part mini-series about the life of the Dutch painter (trailer).
In 2013, he had a minor role in his first Hollywood movie, Hector and the Search for Happiness (trailer).
For his lead role in Bad Banks, the Dutch actor had a German language coach who taught him how to pronounce his German sentences correctly. In the series, Barry Atsma speaks Germand and English.
Atsma won two prestigious German awards for his role as Gabriel Fenger in Bad Banks Season 1. He was awarded Best Actor in a leading role twice.
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Photos: Courtesy of The Iris Group
