German Series ‘Souls’ Combines Reincarnation and ‘Groundhog Day,’ and That’s Just the Beginning
Marta Balaga Following their collaboration on short “When the Hurlyburly’s Done” and “Killing All the Flies,” Alex Eslam and Hanna Maria Heidrich share directorial duties on eight-episode German Sky Atlantic series “Souls,” which competed at Canneseries this week.Produced by Geißendörfer Pictures and Sky Deutschland, its complex plot combines the concept of reincarnation, the kind of love that cheats death and even sees one of its characters, played by Julia Koschitz, caught in a time loop à la Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day.”“It was always clear to me that this topic was way too big to focus on just one storyline,” explains Eslam, who created the series. His protagonists, who seemingly have nothing in common, represent the past, present and the future connected to one tragic event: a passenger plane accident that left many questions unanswered. Until teenage boy Jacob, fresh off a traumatic incident of his own, announces that in a previous life, he was actually the plane’s pilot.