#martyisdead is a Czech thriller webseries that was released on 20 October 2019 Mall.TV. It was created in cooperation with CZ.NIC, filmed by the Czech company Bionaut. It deals with cyberbullying and was inspired by real events drawing inspiration from Blue Whale Challenge.
Plot
The series unravels story of a ninth-grade student Marty, who becomes a victim of cyberbullying. Martin dies during car-accident at the beginning of the series and his father Petr Biederman finds out from Martin's facebook profile that Marty was blackmailed by someone who pretended to be a girl named Eliška Svobodová. "Eliška" convinced Marty to send her video of him masturbating and then used it to blackmail Marty giving him various often horrendous tasks such as killing family dog by putting him in freezer. Petr starts to investigate on his own as police practices are too slow. He gradually unravels Marty's story and events that led to his demise.
Cast
Jakub Nemčok as Martin „Marty“ Biederman
Jan Grundman as Petr Biederman, Marty's father
Petra Bučková as Alena Biedermanová, Marty's mother
Sára Korbelová as Kristýna, Marty's girlfriend
Matěj Havelka as Kryštof, Marty's friend
Andrej Polák as Marty's teacher
Jan Zadražil as a van driver
Klára Miklasová as secretary
Tomáš Bambušek as criminalist
Broadcast
The pilot episode was broadcast on October 20, 2019 on its website by MALL.TV; the remaining seven episodes were published one every Sunday until 8 December 2019. During the preparation of the sequel, the series received an Emmy Award nomination.
Reception
Awards
In September 2020, #martyisdead was historically the first Czech series to be nominated for an international Emmy Award, in the category of Short-Form Series. The series won the award in November. It won the main prize at the Serial Killer festival, where it premiered. In March 2021, it won the Czech Lion Award for the Extraordinary achievement in the field of audiovisual.
Spiritual sequel
The sequel, called #annaismissing, is again co-produced by MALL.TV and Bionaut. It was originally scheduled for release in May 2021. Creators eventually decided to produce it as a feature-length film. It premiered in 2023.
References
External links
2010s Czech television series
Czech crime television series
Czech drama television series
Czech thriller television series
2019 Czech television series debuts
Works about cyberbullying
Emmy Award-winning programs
Czech Lion Awards winners (television series) MALL.TV original programming Czech web series