Bay of Fires tv show, featuring Marta Dusseldorp, showcases Tassie's beauty

The show follows a single mother of two, Stella Heikkinen, played by Tasmania's own Marta Dusseldorp, who has no option but to move her family to a place where locals hide secrets, and outsiders are viewed with murderous suspicion.

It was a no-brainer for Ms Dusseldorp, who is also the show's co-creator, to film in Tasmania, but the question remained: where?

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She said while discussions of the show were taking place, her husband suggested the small historic mining town of Zeehan on the west coast as a location.

"He drove me there, and we went out onto the main street. I just went, oh my God, this is perfect," Ms Dusseldorp said.

"We've been through Queenstown a few times, so we went down there and thought I could put 150 cast and crew here."

Between the two towns and Strahan, Tasmania's west coast was deemed a perfect fit for the show.

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The cast and crew spent 16 weeks through the middle of winter last year filming and even included the locals as extras.

Ms Dusseldorp described the Bay of Fires as a cross between Ozark, Fargo and Schitt's Creek.

"I didn't want to represent Tasmania as a dark, foreboding place; I wanted it to be what it is, which is this muscular, fabulous, natural environment where rugged living people survive and thrive," Ms Dusseldorp said.

"I was more interested in the communities that are created because of this place... some people don't want to be in the spotlight and keep to their own, but will do everything they can for their neighbour."

A personal highlight for Ms Dusseldorp involved shooting on top of a mountain while being enveloped in natural beauty.

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"Standing there with nothing but nature cascading away as far as the eye can see, and someone's there shooting it and just going, wow, the world is going to see this place; it's extraordinary," she said.

Following the recent success of Tasmania set shows like Alone Australia and Deadloch, Ms Dusseldorp said Tasmania's film success wasn't surprising considering how untouched and accessible it was.

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"I think everyone in my crew who came from the mainland was looking at realestate.com most of the time and thinking, maybe I could live here if there was a film industry that went full time, so I think it'll only grow more from here," she said.

"I'm really hoping we get to shoot again in that area and build the story further, so if that happens, I think it'll show that it's possible.

Bay of Fires premiers Sunday, July 16, at 8.30pm on ABC TV and ABC iview.

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