Sky reveals trailer and premiere date for highly anticipated documentary Murder at the Cottage: The Search for Justice for Sophie

Sky has today revealed the official trailer for highly anticipated Sky Original documentary Murder at the Cottage: The Search for Justice for Sophie. The five-part series, which examines the brutal murder of French filmmaker Sophie Toscan du Plantier in West Cork in 1996, is set to premiere on Sky Crime on Sunday 20 June.

The series, which is produced, directed and features six-time Oscar nominated director Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot, In The Name of The Father), will be released in full as a box set with all episodes available to watch on Sky Crime and on streaming service NOW.

Having worked on the project for almost a decade and followed the case over the past 25 years, Sheridan will take viewers on a journey as he pieces together original evidence, never-before-seen footage, archive material and new interviews with those closest to the case.

Jim Sheridan, Director and Producer, said: “As a filmmaker, many stories fascinate me, but this story compels me. In 1996, Sophie - a young mother, a wife, a film producer and a daughter – died just yards from her holiday home in West Cork. To this day, the case remains unsolved in Ireland, while the key suspect has been found guilty in France. As a guest of the nation, Sophie’s murder continues to carry implications for the meaning of justice in Ireland and in France. Two legal systems and two investigations by the French and the Irish found two very different conclusions. I wanted to understand how that could happen, to search for justice and to help uncover the truth. I hope this series will help bring about a definitive conclusion to the case.”

Each episode will take viewers deeper into the case that has haunted West Cork for a quarter of a century.

In 1996, two days before Christmas, Sophie, the wife of French filmmaker Daniel Toscan du Plantier, was brutally murdered at her holiday cottage in Schull, West Cork. The murder rocked the quiet, Irish town and 25 years later, the case remains a mystery. The key suspect, English journalist Ian Bailey – the first reporter on the scene – was quickly arrested by local police following eye-witness reports, yet was never found guilty in Ireland, owing to a lack of reliable evidence. Despite this, Bailey was found guilty in absentia by the French courts in 2019 and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Having successfully fought repeated extradition requests from the French authorities, Bailey still resides in West Cork and maintains his innocence to this day.

Murder at the Cottage: The Search for Justice for Sophie is a Sky Original documentary, produced by Hell’s Kitchen & Dare Films, in association with Sky Studios. It is the first documentary series to be produced in-house at Sky Studios, Sky’s production and development arm. The series is part of a wider investment in Irish content by Sky across factual, comedy and sports.

The series is Directed by Jim Sheridan and Executive Produced by Catherine O’Flaherty for Hell’s Kitchen, with Gary Davey as Executive Producer for Sky Studios. The series is Produced by Sheridan and Donal MacIntyre of Dare Films. The Series Editor is Gretta Ohle, with Iseult Howlett as Editor for episodes 4 & 5.

NBCUniversal Global Distribution handle international sales of the series on behalf of Sky Studios.

Media Contacts

Cara McAllister, Sky Ireland - Cara.Mcallister@sky.ie

Harrison Kelly, Sky Studios – Harrison.Kelly@sky.uk

About Sky

Sky is Europe’s leading media and entertainment company and is proud to be part of the Comcast group. Across six countries, we connect our 23.4 million customers to the best entertainment, sports, news and arts including our own award-winning original content.

Our technology, including the market leading Sky Q, connects people to everything they love – with entertainment from Sky TV, Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and BBC iPlayer, and apps like Spotify, YouTube, BBC Sounds, Highbrow, Peloton, Fiit, and more, in one place, easy. Our streaming service NOW brings viewers all the enjoyment of Sky with the flexibility of a contract-free service. Through our new B2B broadband provider, Sky Connect, we offer superfast broadband with business-grade 4G back-up to small businesses in the UK.

Building on the success of Sky Originals like Chernobyl, Gangs of London and Brassic, we are doubling our investment in original content by 2024 through Sky Studios. Sky News provides impartial and trustworthy journalism for free, Sky Arts is the UK’s only dedicated free-to-air arts channel making the arts accessible for everyone and Sky Sports, our leading sports broadcasting service, brings customers some of the biggest and best global sporting events from the Premier League to Formula 1 and everything in-between. Our new TV and movie studio, Sky Studios Elstree, which will open in 2022, is expected to create over 2,000 new jobs and generate an additional £3 billion of production investment in the UK over the first five years.

We believe that we can be a force for good in the communities in which we operate. We’re committed to being Europe’s first net zero carbon entertainment company by 2030 and we’re proud to be a Principal Partner and Media Partner of COP26. We take pride in our approach to diversity and inclusion: we’ve been recognised by The Times and Stonewall for our commitment to diversity and we’ve set ambitious 2025 targets to continue to increase diversity and representation. We’re also committed to investing £30million across our markets over three years to improve our approach to diversity and inclusion, and to tackle racial injustice.