‘Soviet Jeans’ Season 2 To Move Series Mania Breakout Hit Forward To The Collapse Of The Berlin Wall

EXCLUSIVE: The makers of Latvian breakout drama Soviet Jeans are ironing out the creases on a second season.

We understand that producer Tasse Film is moving ahead on a new season of the Series Mania favorite that will move the action on nearly a decade from the original 1979 setting, which was 12 years before Latvia was freed from communist rule.

Plot details are scarce, but we hear two episodes will unfold in Germany on either side of the Berlin Wall right before its collapse in 1989. The love story between lead character Renars (Karlis Arnolds Avots) and Tiina (Aamu Milonoff) will once again trigger the story and form its backbone.

Stanislavs Tokalovs and Teodora Markova are returning as writers and showrunners, and development is well underway. Baltic streamer Go3 is once again on board and funding from international partners is being sought, with the creative team looking to supersize Season 2 as an international co-production.

Season 1 followed young Latvian rock fan and theater costume designer Renars, who is sent to a mental asylum by the country’s communist government for political reasons in the late 1970s, but uses the incarceration to begin illegally producing counterfeit U.S. jeans with his fellow inmates.

It is loosely based on the experiences of Latvian citizens under Soviet rule, who were victimized for showing interest in western culture and music. Tokalovs directed Season 1 along with Juris Kursietis.

Arnolds Avots’ turn as the rebellious Renars won him the Series Mania award for Best Actor in the festival’s International Panorama section, and stars alongside Igors Selegovskis, Andris Keiss and Aamu Milonoff.

Season 1’s story, which the producers bill as sitting somewhere between comedy and drama, moves from love triangle to jailbreak, and tonally operates as an absurdist comedy, poking fun at the bizarre behavior of communist officials, while also identifying the threat they posed. It won the Audience Prize for Best Series at Series Mania and several more awards at Latvia’s National Film Awards.

Beta Film has been distributing the series and last month tied up deals with Walter Presents for North America, the UK and Ireland, HBO Max for the CEE region, Arte for Germany and France, and Filmin for Spain and Portugal.