"Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root of all evil, the sum of blessings," said Carl Sandburg, the Pulitzer-prize winning American poet and journalist. Ironically, many of those who have money spend an inordinate amount of time fearing that they'll lose it and manipulating their circumstances to ensure they remain affluent. Their power, like their money, depends on a precarious status quo. How those with power and money, and those without, scheme and connive to outsmart one another often forms a key thread in the daily news. Especially in this year of unprecedented global elections, questions of money and power have never been more present in the media and public consciousness.
Scams, corruption and battles for leadership also provide the source of some compelling screen drama. Between the characters we sympathise with and cheer on towards greater money and power, and those characters we fear and despise for their abuse of money and power, there's a wealth of emotion and intellectual provocation to discover in SBS On Demand's Money & Power collection.
Of Money and Blood
Customs inspector and magistrate Simon Weynachter (Vincent Lindon) sets out to investigate and expose one of the most brazen financial crimes in all of history in new French series Of Blood and Money. The series is based upon journalist Fabrice Arfi's 2018 book D'argent et de sang, which revealed how the multi-billion carbon tax fraud (labelled "the fraud of the century") had unfolded a decade earlier. Highly reputed French film director and producer Xavier Giannoli makes his television debut as the creator, writer and director of this 12-episode thriller, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2023. Businessman Jérôme Attias (Niels Schneider) and Alain Fitoussi (Ramzy Bedia) were based on Arnaud Mimran and Mardoche Mouly respectively, the scammers who assembled a network of criminals to attempt a European embezzlement of epic proportions.
Weynachter is head of a newly formed investigative body that specialises in battling white collar crime. In carrying out his duties on another job, he accidentally discovers a carbon quotas scam that introduces him to a couple of small-time crooks and the savvy trader Attias. As Weynachter and Attias fixate upon one another, their mutual obsession – one with exposing a crime, and the other with successfully carrying it out – threatens to devour them both. Filmed across sites in Paris, Manila, Hong Kong, Cyprus and Israel, the ever-changing landscape reveals the far-reaching consequences of this mad caper, and it is Linden's tight-lipped, fierce focus that wins us over. Whether he ultimately prevails is not nearly as captivating as how he bears the weight of injustice from one moment, and one episode, to the next.
The six-episode Part 1 of Of Money and Blood is streaming at SBS On Demand, with Part 2 coming soon.
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Of Money and Blood
series • drama • French
MA15+
series • drama • French
MA15+
Moscow Noir
Adam Pålsson, who viewers may remember from the excellent Swedish crime drama Before We Die, is Tom Blixen in Moscow Noir. Blixen is an attractive, clever young investment manager who finds himself in an international catastrophe after one too many bad decisions. Greed, as is so often the case, blinds Blixen to the full scope of consequences when he chooses to cooperate with a shady oil company in Moscow. Olga Ukolova (Karolina Gruszka), his friend's wife, tells Blixen the couple are having financial problems and in a gesture of kindness, Blixen offers to look at their investments and make recommendations of how they might improve their situation. He wonders if some seemingly trivial oil shares may have some redeeming value, realising that if a number of oil companies were to merge, it could be a windfall. Soon enough, oligarchs, criminals, corrupt politicians and spies reveal their own interests in Blixen's financial operation and Moscow becomes a serpent's nest.
The eight-episode series was adapted from Camilla Grebe and Paul Leander-Engstrom's novel The Conductor from Saint Petersbury. It’s a wild ride, chock full of red herrings, sudden twists, and shocking revelations throughout.
Moscow Noir is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Moscow Noir
series • thriller • Russian
MA15+
series • thriller • Russian
MA15+
Instinctive Desires
This fiery, sexy-as-hell Spanish psychological thriller is a brilliant vehicle of escapism from the ordinariness of daily life. Marco Mur (Mario Casas) is the impressive CEO of tech company ALVA, which is on the brink of launching a fancy new electric car. The husband-wife team of Diego (Jon Arias), Mur's longtime friend, and Barbara (Bruna Cusi) have newly introduced Eva Vergara (Silvia Alonso), a young, driven engineer, to their workforce. For all his business acumen, Mur exists between two extremes of repression during work hours and boundless erotic orgies at the private club he attends. He explores this dichotomy with his psychologist Sara (Miryam Gallego), who he is unusually reliant upon, and we gradually learn more about Mur and what is driving his volatile existence. His autistic younger brother, Jose (Oscar Casas in an award-winning performance) is an inpatient at a specialist center where he will only communicate with his therapist, Carol Majo (Ingrid Garcia-Jonsson). When Mur's secretive erotic life entangles him (literally) with Jose's carer, the personal, the professional, the sacred and profane put everything in Mur's life at stake.
Instinctive Desires is streaming at SBS On Demand until 29 June.
The Ambassador
A politician out for his own interests? Who would have thought! In this Swedish comedy, the pompous ambassador Thomas Hofwander (Mikael Tornving) uses his role at the Swedish embassy in Mexico City to wheel and deal to his own ends. Whether it is Mexico's military, ministers, police, businessmen or civilians, the avaricious Hofwander sees selfish opportunities in everything. An arms deal worth gazillions is on the table, but Hofwander is less interested in the minor details and much more interested in the deal opening up the doors to a high-calibre post in Washington DC. When the media insist on asking questions, Hofwander realises his path to greatness may be stifled by too much attention on his backroom dealings. It is up to the long-suffering embassy staff to try to bring the reputation of Sweden back to the spotlight, despite their knuckleheaded ambassador. Who said money and power couldn’t raise a laugh?
The Ambassador is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
The Ambassador
series • Comedy drama • Swedish
M
series • Comedy drama • Swedish
M
Vanda
While many of the series in this collection focus on protagonists with power and money they are attempting to hold onto, the protagonist in Vanda is bereft of both assets and she is determined to change this for her own sake and her two children’s. With a wig and a toy gun, Lisbon-based hairstylist Vanda (Gabriela Barros) sets out on a series of bank robberies in 2008, at the height of the global financial crisis. As incredible as the storyline is, the series is based on the true story of the hairdresser-cum-criminal Dulce Caroço. Bank heist movies and TV series have often centred upon men carrying out crimes, but in flipping the script, Vanda invites us to empathise with a woman who has been betrayed by her loser husband and sees no other avenue to provide a life for her children. The series was created by Patrícia Müller (Madre Paula) and directed by Simão Cayatte (A Viagem), and the duo manage to combine drama with comedy in a finely balanced dance.
Vanda is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Vanda
series • crime • Portuguese
MA15+
series • crime • Portuguese
MA15+
Hidden Assets
The best reason to tune in and stay hooked to the first season of this Irish drama is Emer Berry (Angelina Ball). The ballsy Irish detective is on a standard drug raid, out to bust a small-time dealer, when she unwittingly discovers that he is involved in a series of deadly bombings in Belgium. To investigate this cross-border crime, Emer is teamed up with Belgian detective Christian de Jong (Wouter Hendrickx), an expert in anti-terrorism. Their original drug case soon blows up into a complex web of terrorism, corporate and political corruption in which the wealthy Bibi Melnick (Simone Kirby) is wielding ruthless power. Fortunately, the drama doesn't end with one season. In the second season Emer makes way for the forthright, compelling DS Claire Wallace (Nora-Jane Noone) at the Criminal Assets Bureau, who is more than ready to take on the nefarious Melnicks.
There's an electric quality to Hidden Assets, in which the intimacy and immediacy of events feels like you're right there on the scene with the detectives, invested in their work and their lives. Can justice prevail? You’ll want to stay glued to the screen to find out, and with this many courageous, badass women leading the fight, it’s proof that power doesn’t necessarily require money, nor does money immediately give power. It’s complicated and seemingly contradictory, as Carl Sandburg’s classic quote implies.
Seasons 1 and 2 of Hidden Assets are streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Hidden Assets
series • Crime drama
MA15+
series • Crime drama
MA15+
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