This is Not a Murder Mystery (2025)
- Project Type
- TV mini series
- Title
- This is Not a Murder Mystery (2025)
- Release Date
- 2025
- Irish Partner
- Deadpan Pictures
- Co-Partners
- Panenka, Belgium
- Funding Strand
- TV & Onlne Content
- Year Funded
- 2023
- Funding Amount
- €264,041
This is Not a Murder Mystery is crime drama set in the 1930s about a group of young Surrealist artists, including Dali and Magritte, who are trapped in a lavish mansion with a serial killer on the loose.
This is Not a Murder Mystery is a TV mini-Series (6 Episodes x 52min). Released in Belgium in 2025.
Screening at Cannes Series 2026.
Will be broadcast on Channel 4 from 29 April 2026.
Shot in Ireland and Belgium, this is a co-production between Irish company Deadpan Pictures and Belgium company Panenka.
In 2023, Deadpan Pictures Ireland was awarded TV & Online Content funding for the project as beneficiaries.
Story Synopsis
Young René Magritte's life is about to change when he's invited to participate in a private art exhibition at an opulent English estate, owned by the flamboyant Lord James. It’s 1936 and the art world is abuzz with the rise of surrealism. Fellow guests include Salvador Dali, Lee Miller, Man Ray, and Max Ernst – all artists on the brink of global fame. But after a wild night, Magritte wakes up beside the dead body of a young woman, with no memory of the previous evening. As more bodies fall and Scotland Yard arrives to lock down the estate, Magritte must uncover the truth to clear his name. Is everything what it seems, or nothing at all?' [Source: Studio Canal].
Credits
- The six-part series is directed by Hans Herbots. with Matthias Lebeer as co-director of episodes 3 and 4.
- Based on an original idea by Christophe Dirickx and Matthias Lebeer.
- Written and created by Dirickx and Paul Baeten with
- Stars include Pierre Gervais, Iñaki Mur, Florence Hall, Frank Bourke and Mike Hoffmann, and many newcomers.
Deadpan Pictures, Ireland
Deadpan Pictures is an award-winning television production company specialising in drama with humour, run by Ailish McElmeel and International Emmy award-winner Paul Donovan with offices in Dublin and Belfast.
In 2024/25 Deadpan produced 18 hours of drama, including Irish Blood starring Alicia Silverstone, AMC’s Acorn TV best performing series ever, a coproduction with Shaftesbury, Canada; This is not a Murder Mystery, a high end period drama, for Studio Canal and the New 8 with Panenka, Belgium; Showkids a family series for RTE and Madgic, and Video Nasty, a coming-of-age darkly comic horror for BBC, Virgin Media Television, WDR and BoatRocker. Deadpan are currently greenlit for season 2 of Irish Blood and are scripting season 2 of Video Nasty.