Four children disappearing in a parallel world, a mysterious elderly lady, her autistic great-nephew and an old, mysterious villa – this is how the new fantasy series “Mysterium” can be described, which this Saturday, October 23, will be shown for the first time on the children’s channel KiKA is broadcast. The youth series is a production by the Munich-based company TV60Film, whose managing director Sven Burgemeister was recently awarded the “Munich shines” medal by Mayor Katrin Habenschaden for his services to the film city of Munich. The gloomy youth series shows once again that Munich has its permanent place as a German film and media city. “Mysterium” is a bit like “Stranger Things”, only without blood and brutality. Just for children. Or for adults for whom some fantasy films are too brutal. There should be something like that. The mini-series is the second collaboration between the Munich-based author Marcus Roth and the director Niklas Weise, who were awarded the Grimme Prize for their first joint project “5 to 12”.
But what is “Mysterium” about? Four young people pass through a mirror into a parallel world from which they can no longer escape. The eleven-year-old Luca (Timon Joris Holzmann), who is visiting his great-aunt Charlotte (Charlotte Schwab), senses that something is wrong and finds out more and more about the “other world” in which Leonie (Lea Drinda), Elif (Safinaz Sattar), Yussuf (Shadi Eck) and David (Johan Korte) are trapped. The Munich production is one thing above all: surprisingly exciting. Episode by episode, more and more secrets about the parallel world are revealed, which encourages you to keep looking. Social criticism is inevitable in the eight-part series: The digital world, which dominates the lives of many young people, is addressed. “Mysterium” is a successful Munich production that is not only interesting for children and young people. That’s nice. Perhaps it is worthwhile to turn on the children’s channel more often as an adult.