‘Brothers’ Producers On Why They Couldn’t Shoot In Cyprus

Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, is at the center of Brothers, the new 6-part series by Simon Farmakas, but producers Fenia Cossovitsa and Alexandra Hoesdorff revealed this afternoon during a panel in Thessaloniki that the show couldn’t shoot in the city.

Cossovitsa and Hoesdorff were joined on the panel by Faye Tsitsipi, Deputy Director of Content Management at MagentaTV, which will broadcast the series in Greece.

The show follows an unorthodox Turkish Cypriot and a hard-headed Greek Cypriot detective who unexpectedly join forces with a European bank auditor in her fight to bring down a politically corrupt network.

The series was shot across several European countries, including Germany, Luxembourg, and Greece, but not Cyprus. When asked why the production was spread so widely across Europe, Farmakas told the audience in Thessaloniki that the producers were “forced” to do so on political grounds.

“In August 2025, we submitted the project to the Ministry of Culture in Cyprus for the equivalent of a cash rebate. It was five or six months of long discussions explaining what the project would be,” she said.

Hoesdorff added: “We had a meeting in Cannes, and we had a Zoom call with everyone. They had read the presentation and the first episode, so they knew what the project was about. That’s very important.”

Cossovitsa continued to say that “in December 2025, we were told—and it’s important to say this was communicated verbally, not in writing—that they couldn’t commit to the project. This happened just before we started production.”

Cossovitsa said the series was already in pre-production. She said reasons the Ministry of Culture in Cyprus turned the project down were “political, obviously.” Cossovitsa continued to suggest that the Cypriot government was unwilling to support a project that predominantly represented Turkish Cypriots.

“You can’t make people disappear,” she said. “You can’t pretend that, on the other side of the no man’s land, there isn’t the Turkish-occupied part. You can’t say there are no Turkish detectives. You can’t leave out the Turkish flag, because when you go to Nicosia, it’s there. We couldn’t make them disappear. That was the request.”

Hoesdorff said the decision from the Cypriot government put the production in a “very difficult situation” financially.

“One has to understand that Cyprus has very high tax credits. Moving everything to Greece made a huge logistical and financial difference,” she said. “So we had to become very creative—more creative than usual—to solve the huge gap we suddenly faced.”

Brothers is currently in post. Farmakas is the showrunner. His previous credits include Sunrise in Kimmeria (2018).

Tsitsipi said Brothers will likely land on MagentaTV in the next year.

The 2026 Thessaloniki Film Festival runs until November 15.