Though the series already premiered overseas for UK viewers thanks to the project's joint production status between BBC Two and Netflix, viewers around the globe will get to experience Black Earth Rising for themselves starting January 25th. Netflix released the first trailer for their original series today to tease the dramatic and difficult story about a survivor of genocide risking everything to discover the truth of her past. The limited series is a contemporary thriller that follows the journey of Kate Ashby (BAFTA TV award-winner Michaela Coel), a Rwandan orphaned by the genocide, raised in London by an adoptive mother and trying to discover her roots. She is helped in her search by lawyer Michael Ennis (John Goodman).

From writer-director Hugo Blick (The Honourable Woman, The Shadow Line), this series attempts to examine the West’s relationship with Africa, set against a backdrop of the prosecution of war crimes. While the trailer does hint at the multiple levels of storytelling going on here, I found Ashby's personal quest to be rather compelling, and less so when the trailer turned into more of an action-slanted mystery series. We'll find out for sure how Black Earth Rising plays out when it arrives on Netflix later this month.

Also starring Harriet Walter (Patrick Melrose), Tamara Tunie (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit), and Noma Dumezweni (Electric Dreams), Black Earth Rising premieres on Netflix January 25th. Watch the first Netflix trailer for it below:

From London, to Paris to Rwanda, Black Earth Rising is a deeply personal journey about one woman’s persistent exploration to uncover her hidden past, at whatever the cost.

 

Starring Michaela Coel and John Goodman. Written and directed by Hugo Blick