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Heavy-hitter Marike Muselaers, VP international financing & co-production for the Scandi group Nordisk Film Production, has unveiled a solid slate of premium series, as its co-production “The Institute” is being pitched at Series Mania CoPro Pitching on Tuesday.

From Denmark, the four-parter “Snake Killer” is the first Prime Video Danish Original series, co-produced by Amazon MGM Studios, which holds first window rights in the Nordics. Anders Ølholm, credited for the hit thriller “Enforcement” (“Shorta”), is making his serialised debut as creator-helmer. In this crime show, toplining Pilou Asbæk, the story turns on Copenhagen’s mobile drug squad (Uropatruljen). A rogue cop, notorious for breaking the law to uphold it, rages war against a mysterious crime family after one of his informants is brutally killed.

The series illustrates Nordisk Film Production’s ambitions and unique leveraging power in a competitive market where financing decisions are back in the hands of producers, away from cash-shy broadcasters or streamers.

Scandinavia’s leading sales agent TrustNordisk has swooped on the international sales rights of Amanda Kernell’s “Brace your Heart” (“Förbannelsen”) ahead of the European Film Market in Berlin.

The Swedish drama, which starts filming this week in the Kiruna region, Northern Sweden, is Kernell’s third pic after the Swedish Oscar entry “Charter” and her acclaimed debut “Sami Blood” (a best directing debut at Venice Days 2016) which firmly put her name among Scandinavia’s most promising female voices.

Based on Kernell’s own original script, the story is set in a remote Sámi village, high in the mountains.

When Ejva (20) inherits her father’s reindeer herd upon his death, she takes over the family tradition and struggles to keep it thriving. At the same time, the local leader Heaika develops romantic feelings for her, and though hesitant, she feels compelled to accept, says the logline.

Everything changes when Nejla,...

Berlinale Series Market Selects has revealed its lineup. The European Film Market’s “boutique market for serial content from all over the world” will welcome Spanish shows in Berlinale Market Selects, its screening showcase, from “Internal Affairs,” focusing on one of the first female police officers in Spain, starting her first post, to “Honor” – yet another take on famous Israeli show which sees a judge covering his son’s crime.

Produced by Alex de la Iglesia, AtresmediaTV and Alex de la Iglesia and Carolina Bang at their Banijay-backed Pookepsie Films, “Sanctuary” turns to post-climate disaster future where women spend their pregnancies in a dome protecting them from pollution. It is not all they think, however.

Meanwhile, “City of God” director Fernando Meirelles and “Borgen” writer Maja Jul Larsen will bring projects to the Bsm’s Co-Pro Series strand.

Spain has been chosen as the Country in Focus at this year’s EFM.

The Berlinale Series Market has unveiled its 2025 lineup, featuring 17 international series under its Market Selects banner.

The productions, from 13 countries, range geographically from Brazil to South Africa to New Zealand and in genres from crime thrillers to biopics to dark comedies (check out the full line-up below). Among the higher-profile titles are the Australian/U.S. series Sunny Nights, starring Will Forte (The Last Man on Earth, Nebraska) and D’Arcy Carden (Barry, The Good Place) as an American brother and sister who head to Sydney to start up a spray tan business only to get caught up in the city’s criminal underworld; and Byun Seung-Min’s Concrete Utopia, a series spin-off of his 2023 hit action film set in a post-apocalyptic world after a catastrophic earthquake.

The small-screen industry event runs Feb. 16-19 as part of the Berlin Film Festival‘s European Film Market (EFM). The Market Selects projects will...

The Danish star of the BBC’s Dracula, Ruben Östlund’s The Square and the new historical action-adventure William Tell is here to answer your questions

Claes Bang only became an actor by chance, after he was persuaded to join a production of Hair at high school in Denmark. He was scared to apply to drama school. “I was sure they would say: ‘Thank you very much for coming, but no thanks,’” he says. But he was accepted and the rest – as they say in Denmark – var historie.

After appearing in multiple Danish and German TV shows and films which we won’t pretend we’ve seen (Lærkevej – Til Døden os Skiller; Rettet Raffi!; Überleben an der Scheidungsfront), as well as featuring in Borgen and The Bridge, Bang jumped into the mainstream after starring in Ruben Östlund’s satirical black comedy The Square, which won the Palme d’Or at the 2017 Cannes film festival.

A healthy ecosystem and healthy competition is the biggest challenge for Netflix Emea, according to chief Larry Tanz.

Tanz threw the gauntlet down to competitors by urging: “We need all of us to develop the next generation of storytellers and want to get ahead on how we develop and upskill storytellers, writers, directors, producers and below the line talent.” He implied that Netflix is ahead of the game in this area, pointing to training programs the streamer has run across the world and an upcoming one at the Red Sea International Film Festival.

“We have been pretty consistent in terms of our investment and growth,” he went on to say at Content London. “We are seeing that our locally-oriented commissioning approach is working for our members and business. We want a healthy ecosystem and healthy competition – that is our biggest challenge.”

He was speaking after a year in which Netflix...

A panel of top Netflix executives touted 10 years of the global streamer in such key European territories as France, Germany and Italy on Tuesday.

At Content London, vp of content Emea Larry Tanz, vp of content France Pauline Dauvin and vp of content Italy Tinny Andreatta spoke during a fireside discussion celebrating big milestones for Netflix, with the 10-year anniversary this year in France and Germany and more dates to mark in 2025 in Italy and Spain.

During the session, Tanz shared that between 2020 and 2023, Netflix invested €6.5 billion ($6.8 billion) in European, non-English series and films, including some of the service’s most popular series and films, such as Society of the Snow (Spain), Troll (Norway), Borgen (Denmark), Under Paris (France), High Water (Poland), and The Hand Of God (Italy).

“That’s great for our members from films and series they get, but also for the industry,” Tanz said. “That has resulted in 60,000 jobs just in Europe.

The Diplomat is once again one of the hottest shows on Netflix! The Diplomat season 2 just premiered on Oct. 31, and fans all over the world bing-watching the new season of the Netflix political thriller starring Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell. In fact, it's now No. 1 on the Netflix Top 10.

Created by Debora Cahn, who also worked on Homeland and The West Wing, The Diplomat tells the story of US Ambassador to the UK Kate Wyler, played by Russell, and her husband, former US Ambassador Hal Wyler. After a British aircraft carrier is bombed, Kate and Hal use their resources and smarts to de-escalate the crisis and find out what actually happened.

There are two seasons of The Diplomat streaming on Netflix right now, and there's a third season officially on the way. The Diplomat season 2 is only six episodes, so it's a really quick binge-watch. We know fans are looking...

Borgen, Game of Thrones and more recently Salem’s Lot, Pilou Asbæk discusses his role in Secrets (Den Gode Stemning), a gripping Danish drama series available to stream on Viaplay. The show explores the hidden tensions and dark secrets within a seemingly well-functioning family. Asbæk portrays Mads, a music teacher who spirals into a dangerous lifestyle as he struggles with the pressures of his everyday life and unresolved childhood family trauma.

The plot centres around siblings Mads (Asbæk) and Eva (Iben Hjejle), who live in adjacent apartments in Copenhagen with their respective families. Mads, trapped in the predictability of his family and professional life, turns to drugs, alcohol, and an underground world of vices to escape his reality. His double life becomes increasingly difficult to manage, and despite his best efforts, his life inevitably starts to unravel.

Asbæk delves into the complexity of his character, Mads. We also asked him about...

August’s New Nordic Films, Scandinavia’s biggest second-half-of-the-year film market, will open with drama-thriller “Way Home” from Charlotte Sieiling, a concept director on the original “The Bridge” and “Borgen.”

The screening will mark the world premiere of “Way Home,” sold by LevelK and produced by Denmark’s Toolbox Film.

“This movie means a lot to me, and I really hope the Nordic audience and the world will embrace our effort to tell this father-son story in an environment so different from ours, but still part of our reality,” said Sieling.

Sieling’s latest film, “Margrete – Queen of the North,” a lavish, stately historical drama,” in Variety’s words, asked t what extent a monarch would subordinate vital interest of state to personal interest. “Way Home” poses a similar question – how far are you willing to go to save the people you love? – in an entirely different context. Christian...

Exclusive: From dark to light – Piv Bernth, one of the architects of the Nordic Noir genre, is working on Feelings & Things, a comedy-drama set in a shopping mall. Bernth and her Apple Tree Productions banner are reuniting with Ditte Hansen and Louise Mieritz on the project, which they hope to shoot next year.

Bernth is behind some of the biggest Danish dramas ever. She produced shows including The Killing and The Bridge and as a commissioner greenlit series such as Borgen and Ride Upon The Storm, pioneering a wave of brooding high-end drama.

Now running her own prodco, the ITV Studios-backed Apple Tree, Bernth was speaking to Deadline at the Monte-Carlo TV Festival, where she is on the jury in the fiction category.

“We are working on a comedy with Ditte Hansen and Louise Mieritz who did Chorus Girls,” Bernth told Deadline. “It’s set in a shopping mall...

Shailene Woodley is setting out to capture the power of women.

The “Big Little Lies” alum returns to novel-adaptation ensemble TV with “Three Women,” based on Lisa Taddeo’s bestselling book of the same name. Woodley plays Gia, a writer who is grieving the death of her family and sets out to interview three “ordinary” women to tell her their stories of love, life, and loss.

Those trio of women include Betty Gilpin, who plays a stuffy housewife who begins an affair, DeWanda Wise as a woman in an open marriage that quickly becomes a quadruple (one more than a thruple), and Gabrielle Creevy who stars as a student that gets entangled with her married English teacher.

The synopsis reads: Three women are on a crash course to radically overturn their lives. Lina (Gilpin), a homemaker in suburban Indiana, is a decade into a passionless marriage when she embarks on...

Exclusive: Pathé and Chapter 2 have announced the start of shoot in Morocco today for Martin Bourboulon’s Afghanistan evacuation drama In The Hell Of Kabul: 13 Days, 13 Nights and unveiled new cast additions.

Rising French actress Lyna Khoudri (French Dispatch) and Danish Bafta-winning Borgen star Sidse Babett Knudsen have joined the cast, which is led by Roschdy Zem, and also features respected theatre actor Christophe Montenez of The Comédie Française.

Set against the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan of U.S. troops in August, 2021 as the Taliban march on Kabul, the film recounts the true story of French Commander Mohamed Bida, who oversaw security at the French embassy, the last Western mission to remain open.

Trapped, Commander Bida decides to negotiate with the Taliban to organise a last-chance convoy with the help of Eva, a young French-Afghan translator. There is a race against time to lead the evacuees to...

Danish actor Pilou Asbæk, star of Game Of Thrones, Aquaman and Borgen, has joined the cast of Ugla Hauksdóttir’s feature debut, Icelandic thriller The Fires, as Bankside locks in pre-sales in key territories.

Ingvar Sigurdsson and Borys Szyc also join the previously announced cast of Vigdís Hrefna Pálsdóttir, Guðmundur Ólafsson, Þór Tulinius, Arndís Hrönn Egilsdóttir and Jörundur Ragnarsson.

Sales have landed in Germany (Wild Bunch), Eastern Europe (HBO), Former Yugoslavia (McF), Middle East (Front Row) and Switzerland (Praesens).

The Fires is about a volcanologist, responsible for predicting the volcanic activity and ensuring public safety, who finds herself caught between...

Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen, Clara Rugaard and Til Schweiger lead the international cast of “Desperate Journey,” a newly-announced thriller set in the burlesque world of 1940s Paris.

The film — which has now wrapped production — comes from Emblem Pictures, and was written by two-time Oscar nominee Michael Radford (best known for directing 1994 global sensation “Il Postino”) and directed by Emmy winner Annabel Jankel (“Tell It to the Bees”).

Produced by Warren Derosa and Zsófia Kende, “Desperate Journey” is based on the true story of Freddie Knoller (played by Tønnesen), a young man forced to flee Vienna as Nazi hysteria takes hold. Knoller’s captivating story has been widely recognized around the world and he was honored by the late Queen Elizabeth.

Rounding out the supporting cast of the film are Sienna Guillory (“Meg 2: The Trench,” “Clifford the Big Red Dog”), Steven Berkoff, Fernando Guallar (“Love Divided”), Hugo Speer (“The Full Monty...

CBS Studios and the BBC’s period drama series “King & Conqueror” has revealed additional cast members, including “The Crown’s” Luther Ford and “Game of Thrones” actor Joseph Mawle, as it begins production in Iceland.

According to its official plot description, “King & Conqueror” is “the story of a clash that defined the future of a country – and a continent – for a thousand years, the roots of which stretch back decades and extend out through a pair of interconnected family dynasties, struggling for power across two countries and a raging sea. Harold of Wessex and William of Normandy were two men destined to meet at the Battle of Hastings in 1066; two allies with no design on the British throne, who found themselves forced by circumstance and personal obsession into a war for possession of its crown.”

Additional cast members include Eddie Marsan, Juliet Stevenson, Jean-Marc Barr, Geoff Bell, Elliot Cowan,...

Dar Salim has joined the cast of The Terminal List: Dark Wolf. The show is a prequel to Prime Video's The Terminal List following Ben Edwards (Taylor Kitsch). Chris Pratt will also reprise his Terminal List role as James Reece.

The Terminal List: Dark Wolf has cast another important role. The upcoming show is a prequel to the Chris Pratt-led The Terminal List, a Prime Video show that follows Navy Seal Lieutenant Commander James Reece, who returns home only to find himself embroiled in a dangerous conspiracy. Dark Wolf will star Taylor Kitsch reprising his role as Reece's ex-teammate Ben Edwards. The cast also includes Jared Shaw, Tom Hopper, and Luke Hemsworth alongside Pratt reprising his role as Reece.

Per Variety, the Terminal List: Dark Wolf show has added a new cast member to its ranks. Dar Salim has been added to the show as a recurring guest star.

Movie buffs may recognize the name Gustav Möller because his debut feature, “The Guilty,” played Sundance, then went on to inspire an English-language remake starring Jake Gyllenhaal. The film famously took place on one end of an emergency services line, as an overcommitted police officer tried to rescue a distressed caller whose crisis wasn’t nearly as straightforward as it sounded. An impressive example of creativity within constraints, “The Guilty” invited audiences to make an action movie in their heads while giving them little more than the tense face of a single character to look at for most of its running time.

With “Sons,” Möller has made a more conventional film, but still does most of his storytelling off-screen. His protagonist is a Danish corrections officer named Eva Hansen. She’s half the size of most of the male prisoners on her ward, but can obviously hold her own, swelling...

Sidse Babett Knudsen went “completely visceral” in Gustav Möller’s prison drama “Sons,” premiering in Berlinale’s main competition.

“My approach was almost animalistic. That’s how she felt to me. She doesn’t know how to live: she has resigned into someone who can just survive,” says the acclaimed “Borgen” and “Westworld” actor who plays Eva, a prison guard with a secret.

“This environment matches her psychological state, driven by grief and guilt. Eva believes she is invisible. When people actually ask her questions, it takes an unnatural amount of time for her to respond. She can only function within these restricted walls, trying to give these inmates some kindness.”

When she spots a young inmate connected to her past, she immediately asks to be transferred to his block. A complex relationship forms, but Mikkel (Sebastian Bull) doesn’t know all about Eva.

“Sons” is produced by Nordisk Film Production,...

Beta Cinemas has sold Hammarskjold – Fight For Peace, the Swedish box office hit, across Europe as a slew of deals were unveiled at EFM in Berlin.

The biopic has gone to Rai Cinema in Italy, Swift Productions for France, Twelve Oaks Spain, Portugal’s Outsider Films and Discovery for the former Yugoslavia. Beta adds a U.S. deal is under negotiation.

Hammarskjöld – Fight For Peace, directed and co-written by Per Fly, stars Sex Education actor Mikael Persbrandt in the role of Dag Hammarskjöld, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Fly wrote and directed the feature film Backstabbing for Beginners for A24, with Theo James and Ben Kingsley in the leading roles. He also directed the popular Danish political drama Borgen and is currently is in preproduction on the Nordic crime series Reservatet for Netflix.

Hammarskjold – Fight fo Peace, set in New York City in 1961, follows Hammarskjold as the...

Orange Studio has boarded true-crime-tinged psychological thriller “An Ordinary Case” and will launch sales at this week’s Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris. Top-lined, co-written and directed by French cinema stalwart Daniel Auteuil, this pulled-from-the-headlines drama also boasts “Borgen” and “Westworld” star Sidse Babett Knudsen alongside acclaimed actor Grégory Gadebois (“An Officer and a Spy”).

Auteuil adapted the feature from the work of Jean-Yves Moyart – a jurist-turned-blogger-turned-bestselling author who wrote of his experiences in the French legal system – and will star as Jean Monier, a disillusioned lawyer defending a man accused of murdering his wife. While all signs point to the accused’s guilt, Monier remains steadfast in his presumption of innocence. What begins as an ordinary case turns out to be anything but.

Following in the footsteps of Alice Diop’s Venice and César winner “Saint Omer,” of Cédric Kahn’s Cannes-acclaimed “The Goldman Case,” and of Justine Triet’s...

Sweden’s Göteborg Film Festival unveiled its 2024 lineup today, featuring 250 feature films set to screen across ten days, with highlights including Handling the Undead, Norwegian filmmaker Thea Hvistendahl’s feature debut, starring Renate Resinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie. Other buzzy titles include the Finish title The Missile from filmmaker Miia Tervo and Morbius director Daniel Espinosa’s return to Nordic filmmaker with Madame Luna.

Handling the Undead opens the festival following its debut bow at Sundance. The pic, an adaptation of a novel by Let The Right One In writer John Ajvide Lindqvist, tells the story of three families recently left in mourning after the passing of loved ones. Suddenly, the power grid goes out, and the deceased begin to move.

Guests set to pass through Gothenburg include actor Ewan McGregor, who will receive the festival’s honorary dragon award for career achievement. He will also be in town to...

The Göteborg Film Festival has unveiled the competition titles selected for its 47th edition, which runs from January 26 to February 4. (Scroll down for the full list).

Göteborg is split into four competition strands. The main strand is the Nordic Competition, which features nine films from the Nordic region. The competition’s winner takes home the Dragon Award and a Sek 400,000 cash prize. The rest of the festival comprises the Nordic Documentary Competition, the Ingmar Bergman Competition for first-time filmmakers, and the International Competition.

Among the Nordic highlights is Madame Luna, Swedish filmmaker Daniel Espinosa’s return to Nordic filmmaking following a series of Hollywood titles such as Morbius and Safe House. Inspired by real-life events, the film follows an Eritrean refugee who gets stuck in Libya and becomes a notorious human trafficker known as “Mama Luna” with deep ties to the Italian Mafia. When she is forced to flee to...

“Vogter,” a psychological thriller directed by Gustav Möller, whose previous film “The Guilty” won the Audience Award at Sundance, has been pre-sold by Les Films du Losange to multiple territories.

“Vogter,” which was just completed and is now in post, has been picked up for Germany, Austria, Switzerland (Ascot Elite), Spain (La Aventura), Italy (Movies Inspired), Japan (Happinet Phantom Studios), Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg (Cineart), Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania (Kino Pavasaris) and Hungary (Vertigo). Les Films du Losange has closed these deals since unveiling the project at Cannes and is negotiating further sales in other key territories.

The film is headlined by Sidse Babett Knudsen, the BAFTA-winning actor of “Borgen,” as Eva, an idealistic prison officer, is faced with the dilemma of her life when a young man from her past gets transferred to the prison where she works. Without revealing her secret, Eva asks to be moved to the young man...

French industry to descend on La Rochelle to premiere high-end drama series to the world.

Disney+’s French original Irrésistible, Canal+ legal drama Conviction, TF1’s Behind Closed Doors from Coda producers’ Jerico TV and Swedish thriller Evil are among the French and European titles that will premiere at France’s Festival de la Fiction, taking place in La Rochelle from September 12-17.

The event, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2023, has long been a popular ‘back-to-school’ festival for the French industry, with a strong focus on French series, Its international appeal is growing and it has become a significant launchpad for European content.

The Promised Land is a gripping historical epic drama starring Mads Mikkelsen, based on a Danish bestseller about a proud captain tasked with building a colony on barren heath. The film, directed by Nikolaj Arcel and co-written by Anders Thomas Jensen, explores the challenges faced by the captain as he encounters opposition from both the land and the ruthless landowner. The Promised Land scheduled will compete for the Golden Lion at the 80th Venice International Film Festival.

The international trailer and poster for The Promised Land, a new historical epic drama starring Mads Mikkelsen, has been released. In the words of TrustNordisk, the film is “a gripping story about the conquest of the heath, the tale of a proud and uncompromising man, and the woman who becomes his ally in the fight against evil, death and perdition.” And it's the based on the 2020 Danish bestseller Kaptajnen og Ann Barbara or...

With Jackie Chan's new movie coming soon to theaters, the Hidden Strike cast has started making news, and it looks like one that will offer some fun and excitement for the veteran martial arts master. John Cena is also along for the ride in what is called an action-comedy. Hidden Strike takes place in the near future where Cena and Chan play two former special forces veterans paired up on a mission to escort some people over the "Highway of Death," which passes through Baghdad and is supposed to be one of the world's deadliest roadways. They then have to battle oil thieves, led by none other than Game of Thrones actor Pilou Asbaek.

There isn't much known about the Hidden Strike cast other than the three leads, but there are a few other recognizable faces who joined on to play mostly unknown roles. As for the main characters,...

Programme at International Film School Cologne is headed by ’Borgen’ showrunner Jeppe Gjervig Gram.

Screenwriters including Domina’s Rachel Paterson and The Gryphon’s Senad Halilbasic are among 12 series writers from 10 countries selected for the 2023 edition of the European Showrunner Programme at International Film School Cologne (ifs).

The training and mentoring programme is run by Borgen showrunner Jeppe Gjervig Gram with showrunners Jeff Melvoin (Killing Eve), Petja Peltomaa (Syke/Nurses) as well as Philipp Käßbohrer and Matthias Murmann (How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast)).

The programme is designed to train up a new generation of showrunners in Europe. Show runners,...

Good afternoon Insiders, Max Goldbart here bringing you a rundown of all the biggest headlines and analysis from the international film and TV universe. Read on.

Bad Week For ITV Carolyn McCall and Phillip Schofield

Abuse of power?: Anyone at ITV who thought the Phillip Schofield drama would all blow over quickly was living in dreamland. Late last Friday afternoon, just as we were all putting down our pens for the Bank Holiday weekend, the man who had just left This Morning in a hurry after two decades on the sofa used a lengthy mea culpa to confirm what so many had believed to be a rumor for so many years – that he had had an affair with a much younger colleague during his lengthy stint on the daytime stalwart. Media eyes had already been trained on This Morning and Schofield’s public-not-public spat with former co-host Holly Willoughby...

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” or so the Shakespeare line goes. Since the start of 2022, the infamous Hamlet phrase feels apt when one considers the state of the country’s renowned TV and film industry, a sector that originated such Nordic noir classics as The Killing and Borgen.

As the writers strike rumbles on stateside, the Danish entertainment industry has been suffering from its own stasis, which has shaken networks, streamers, producers, actors and crew. The Danish production sector is now dealing with a massive decrease in work of up to 50%, according to estimates from knowledgeable industry sources, while controversial government legislation known as the Cultural Contribution Act is central to the future health of the sector.

So how did we get here? Primary to the chaos was a major commissioning freeze by leading streamers Netflix and Viaplay and the state-owned TV2 over a residuals row with Create Denmark,...

Momento Film, the leading Swedish banner founded by David Herdies (“Winter Buoy”) and Michael Krotkiewski (“Bellum — The Daemon Of War”), is boasting a slate of projects including the documentaries “Leaving Jesus” and “The Underdog,” as well as Simón Mesa Soto’s “A Poet.”

While at Cannes, the banner also started teasing one of its biggest project so far, “The Swedish Torpedo,” Frida Kempff (“Winter Buoy”)’s period film inspired by the life of Sally Bauer, the first Scandinavian to swim across the English Channel in 1939. “The Swedish Torpedo” will start shooting in August with a topnotch cast led by Josefin Neldén, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, as well as Lisa Carlehed (“The Emigrants”).

Co-produced by Sweden, Estonia, Belgium and England, the film opens in 1939, as Europe is on the brink of war. Sally, a 30-year-old single mom, dreams of being the first European woman to cross the English Channel. While society and...

Top Chilean fiction house Parox, producer of “Invisible Heroes,” has kick-started principal photography on international co-production “Los mil días de Allende”, a historical drama mini-series about the last three years in the life of Chilean President Salvador Allende.

Alfredo Castro – one of Latin America’s most respected actors and a Pablo Larraín regular, star of films such as “Karnawal” and “El Club” – leads the mini-series cast as Allende; Benjamín Vicuña plays Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

The four-episode, 55-minute fiction drama shoot is taking place entirely in Chile, lensing from May 15 for two months, under “Besieged” and “Inés of My Soul” director Nicolás Acuña.

Leonora González and Sergio Gándara, Parox co-founders, are respectively the mini-series’ showrunner and producer.

A Chile-Spain-Argentina co-production, “Allende, the Thousand Days” teams Spain’s Mediterráneo Media Entertainment and Argentine companies Aleph, Mente Colectiva and HD Argentina.

Chilean public broadcaster Tvn, Spanish nationwide group Rtve and Argentina’s...

Frida Kempff (“Winter Buoy”) is set to direct “The Swedish Torpedo,” a period film inspired by the life of Sally Bauer, the first Scandinavian to swim across the English Channel in 1939. The prominent Nordic cast is led by Josefin Neldén, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, as well as Lisa Carlehed (“The Emigrants”).

Produced by David Herdies and Erik Andersson at Momento Film, the film will start shooting in August in Sweden, Estonia, Belgium and England.

“Five years ago I didn’t know who Sally Bauer was and even less what she had achieved. Five days ahead of the outbreak of WWII she swam across the English Channel,” said Kempff I feel this is a story that needs to be told, about a woman who accomplished the impossible and shattered both social norms and world records.”

Neldén, who will play Bauer, said she feels “such a strong connection to Sally’s dreams, life and ambitions.

Power Play, a 1970s-set comedy that plays with the conventions of period TV, docudrama and political satire, has won the top prize for best series at this year’s Canneseries television festival.

The series stars Kathrine Thorborg Johansen as Gro Harlem Brundtland, a young doctor and women’s choice activist in the 1970s who, through a series of accidents, stumbles into politics and, while the government around her implodes, learns to play the power game, rising the ranks to become Norway’s first female prime minister. The project, which plays like a comedic version of Danish political series Borgen, also took the best music honor at Canneseries for Kåre Christoffer Vestrheim, Andrea Louise Horstad, Kristoffer Lo and Eivind Helgerød.

Created by showrunner Johan Fasting and directed by Yngvild Sve Flikke, the series was produced by Motlys and Fremantle label Novemberfilm for Nrk / Ndr in Norway. Power Play is being sold worldwide by REinvent International Sales.

Jake Gyllenhaal in Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant Photo: MGM Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant might have its director’s name in the title, but it’s star Jake Gyllenhaal who evokes what the film is trying to be. It’s an action movie set during an unpopular war that...

The BBC has been told that it must be more transparent about its content acquisitions strategy after being accused by ITV of buying glossy U.S. shows to chase ratings.

Ofcom, the UK’s media regulator, said the BBC must explain in its Annual Plan how buying content, as opposed to commissioning British originals, supports “distinctiveness” and engages different audiences.

The BBC is funded by the British public to the tune of £3.8B ($4.7B), meaning it has an obligation to be distinct from commercial rivals like ITV and serve all audiences.

Ofcom made the intervention as part of plans to update the BBC’s operating licence for a digital age from next month. A guiding principle of the changes is transparency, with Ofcom arguing that the BBC has not always provided proper “detail and clarity” on updates to its output and services.

In a submission to Ofcom’s review, ITV...

Series Mania has always been about discovery: Of drama series as an art form, in its early days from launch in 2009; then of key players on a burgeoning international premium TV scene.

Series Mania’s International Panorama now catches a new wave of creatives transitioning from film to scripted TV – Israel’s Yaron Shani with “Innermost,” Spain’s Isaki Lacuesta and Isa Campo with episodes of “Apagón”; and highlights notable emerging auteurs: Denmark’s Kasper Møller Rask, Canada’s Alexis Durand-Brault, Spain’s Fran Araujo, Pakistan’s Assim Abassi and Germany’s Jakob and Jonas Weydemann.

But for having already bowed at national festivals, some of the 12 titles below could well have been in the running for a Competition berth.

Below, the Series Mania’s rich 2023 International Panorama:

“Apagón,” (“Offworld,” Spain)

One of Variety’s Best International TV Shows of 2022, a realistic, sophisticated disaster thriller from Movistar+ and Buendía Estudios...

Internationale Filmschule Köln’s showrunner programme is headed by ’Borgen’ writer Jeppe Gjervig Gram

As the role of showrunner becomes increasingly important in European series production, the ifs Internationale Filmschule Köln’s European Showrunner Programme has secured an additional three years of funding from Creative Europe – Media Programme of the European Union.

The Film-und-Medienstiftung Nrw is on board as a funding partner and Netflix is continuing to support the programme both financially and in terms of experts and content. In addition to Series Mania and the Film Festival Cologne, the ifs has gained the Seriencamp and the Film Festival Göteborg as new festival partners.

Danish actor Nikolaj Lie Kaas is best known for his work on-screen with filmmakers such as Lars von Trier and Anders Thomas Jensen, but he’s in Berlin this week with Agent, his first project as a writer-director.

The eight-part series is a biting show-business satire centered around Joe, an ambitious 35-year-old agent for some of Denmark’s biggest stars. His job is to solve his clients’ problems – be they professional or personal, but he has enough of both kinds himself: He is about to lose custody of his ten-year-old daughter Tallulah, and his boss, who is also his mother, is close to firing him. As Joe desperately tries to keep his head above the water, his issues only multiply.

Esben Smed (Follow the Money) stars as Joe, and Danish actors such as Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Game of Thrones) and Sidse Babett Knudsen feature as caricatures of themselves in...

Swedish actor Mikael Persbrandt is the star of “Hammarskjöld,” Per Fly’s Cold War-set political thriller, which Beta Cinema will launch at the European Film Market.

Persbrandt will play the lead role in the English-language film as Dag Hammarskjöld, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations who died in a mysterious plane crash in 1961.

Hammarskjöld, whom John F. Kennedy called “the greatest statesman of our century,” was a Nobel Prize winner who fought to end colonization.

Produced by Beta Nordic Studios’ Swedish banner Unlimited Stories, the story opens at the peak of the Cold War in 1961 at the Un headquarters in New York City. The charismatic diplomat and economist Dag Hammarskjöld has reached the pinnacle of his power, serving as Secretary General of the United Nations in his seventh year.

After decolonization, he takes it upon himself to bring peace to the African countries, thwarting plans to further exploit resources...

Days after Showtime cut bait on the already completed series “Three Women” starring Shailene Woodley, Starz has swooped in to acquire and rescue the show, as first reported in THR. However, an individual with knowledge told IndieWire that negotiations for the rights to the show were still underway.

THR also reported that “Three Women,” which is based on the book by Lisa Taddeo, was also shopped to HBO and Amazon before it landed at Starz.

Starz had no comment.

Though it’s already finished principal production, Showtime followed a trend that began with “Batgirl,” in which streamers and networks cut their losses and take tax write-offs for already completed or in-the-works projects. Should a deal close, “Three Women” would add to Starz’s previously rescuing the upcoming second season of “Minx,” which first premiered on HBO last year. That show was produced by Starz’s parent company, Lionsgate TV.

Woodley...

Showtime’s loss is Starz’s gain.

Lionsgate-backed premium cabler Starz is rescuing Three Women, the Shailene Woodley-fronted drama that Showtime dropped following Chris McCarthy’s arrival at the network. Sources say the series was shopped to multiple outlets, including HBO and Amazon, before landing at Starz.

Reps for Starz declined comment.

Paramount Global-owned Showtime originally snagged rights to the book in 2019 following a fierce bidding war. Showtime, then under David Nevins’ oversight, handed out a straight-to-series order to the drama which was eyed to premiere in 2022.

Following Nevins’ departure from Paramount Global, McCarthy was given oversight of Showtime and last week announced a rebranding of the network to Paramount+ With Showtime with an emphasis on franchises. Those plans were further revealed Monday with multiple Dexter and Billions offshoots in various stages of development.

Three Women becomes the latest castoff scripted series to land at Starz. The...

“Kids in Crime,” a high energy 22-minute episode coming of age drama with a notable turn by Scandi superstar Jakob Oftebro as a not-to-be-messed-with local drug lord, walked off with the 2023 Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize for best drama series screenwriting.

Federation Studios handles international distribution.

Hardly known – his major calling card to date was a 2017 short, “The Hunger, a Young Director Award at 2019’s Cannes – Karlstad won out against stiff competition with a high-energy half hour drama set in 2001 in Norway’s drab Sarpsborg in which three roofie-fuelled teen friends run up with local drug kingpin Freddy Fingers (Oftebro).

“An impactful new offering, “Kids In Crime” presents Karlstadt’s nose for rebellious but tight narratives and a set of teenage characters hoping to live with the volume turned high,” Variety wrote in an interview with Karlstad.

Framed as eight less than half hour episodes at the request of broadcaster TV 2 Norge,...

Exploding in Danish pubcaster Dr’s prime time slot on Sunday Oct. 2, “Carmen Curlers” attracted more viewers for Episode 2 than a political debate with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in the run-up to general elections, according to the Nordisk Film & TV Fond Newsletter.

Little wonder. Politicians promise to better their country. Inspired by the true story of Dane Arne Byborg’s launch of electric hair curlers, “Carmen Curlers,” set over 1963-69, shows how it really happened, as women began to enter the workforce and earn their own money and independence.

The two events are embodied by the series’ lead: Axel Byvang, played by Morten Hee Andersen (“Ride Upon the Storm”), who bears a striking resemblance to the real life early-thirties Byborg, and farmer’s wife Birthe Windfeld.

In the series’ early going, Axel happens on a newspaper advert appealing for financing backing for a new electric hair curler. Allowing...

Distributed by ITV Studios, “Blackwater,” the new banner series from Apple Tree producer Piv Bernth – behind iconic Scandinavian series “The Killing,” “The Bridge” and “Borgen” – opens in premonitory mode with the camera panning away from a falcon to take in the Lobber River’s white water and churning slate grey currents as a supernatural horror-movie chant bleeds into the soundtrack.

The foreboding anticipates a double murder on the river’s banks and conveys a broader sense sluicing the series of the menace of nature itself – both the chilling woods around Blackwater, a village in mid-Sweden, and latent human brutality.

In 1973, on Midsummer’s Eve, Annie, a young in-love schoolteacher who has just arrived in the area, discovers the bodies of two murdered tourists on the banks of the river. Glimpsing a man running away from the crime scene, she will live in fear for the next 20 years, sleeping with a shotgun beside her bed.

The 28th Critics Choice Awards took place at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles on Sunday night. The annual ceremony honored the year in film and television with A24’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once” leading film nominations at 14, while ABC’s “Abbott Elementary” lead television nominations with six.

Chelsea Handler hosted the CW broadcast, taking over from actor Taye Diggs, who hosted the past four years of the awards ceremony. Special awards were presented to Janelle Monáe, who received the #SeeHer award, while Jeff Bridges was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Read the full winners list below, and click here to see the red carpet arrivals gallery.

Best Picture

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” (A24)

“Avatar: The Way of Water” (20th Century Studios) “Babylon” (Paramount Pictures) “The Banshees of Inisherin” (Searchlight Pictures) “Elvis” (Warner Bros.) “The Fabelmans” (Universal Pictures) “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” (Netflix...

ITV Studios, Fremantle and Federation Studios, partnering with Apple Tree Productions, Elisa Viihde and TV 2 Norge, will go head to head with Nordic powerhouses Glassriver and Dr at next year’s Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize which promises to underscore the large breadth of current Scandinavia scripted series.

Backed by the Göteborg Film Festival and Nordisk Film & TV Fond, the 7th edition of the Prize, awarded to series’ main writers, also looks set to shine a spotlight on high-profile and on-the-rise writing talent such as Icelandic thesp Anita Briem, who played Jean Seymour in “The Tudors,” and Finnish creator-director Matti Kinnunen, whose “Cargo” was reckoned one of the strongest contenders at the 2021 Prize.

Carrying a €20,000 cash endowment, the Prize will be presented on Feb. 1 to the winning series’ main writer at TV Drama Vision, the Göteborg Film Festival’s conference event and series market.

“Today there is a...

In Danish political drama Borgen, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen plays a fearless journalist holding power to account. In real life, she’s been calling out government plans to tax streamers and suggesting tax incentives.

The actress has joined a chorus of voices from the Danish production and creative communities condemning Denmark’s proposed Cultural Contribution Act. The legislation includes the demand streamers such as Netflix, HBO Max and Viaplay pay 6 of their local revenues to support local production and public broadcaster Dr.

Hjort Sørensen told local Berlingske podcast Østergaard’s Salon that rather than supporting the local production sector, it would undermine the foundations on which it is build and scare away streamers.

“It’s kind of bizarre to me that you don’t try to embrace market forces that would really benefit Danish culture,” she said.

“If the services are charged an extra payment, then it may be that they...

The 28th Annual Critics Choice Awards nominations were announced Tuesday, and it's another clean sweep for Abbott Elementary with six nods.

Better Call Saul notched five.

Check out the full list of nominees below.

Best Drama Series

Andor (Disney+)

Bad Sisters (Apple TV+)

Better Call Saul (AMC)

The Crown (Netflix)

Euphoria (HBO)

The Good Fight (Paramount+)

House of the Dragon (HBO)

Severance (Apple TV+)

Yellowstone (Paramount Network)

Best Actor In A Drama Series

Jeff Bridges, The Old Man

Sterling K. Brown, This Is Us

Diego Luna, Andor

Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul

Adam Scott, Severance

Antony Starr, The Boys

Best Actress In A Drama Series

Christine Baranski, The Good Fight

Sharon Horgan, Bad Sisters

Laura Linney, Ozark

Mandy Moore, This Is Us

Kelly Reilly, Yellowstone

Zendaya, Euphoria

Best Supporting Actor In A Drama Series

Andre Braugher, The Good Fight

Ismael Cruz Córdova, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Michael Emerson,...

TV nominees for the 28th Annual Critics Choice Awards were announced on Tuesday, and ABC breakout Abbott Elementary led the pack with six nominations.

In addition to a nod for Best Comedy Series, Abbott Elementary notched nominations for five of its cast members: Quinta Brunson (Actress in a Comedy), Chris Perfetti and Tyler James Williams (Supporting Actor in a Comedy), and Janelle James and Sheryl Lee Ralph (Supporting Actress in a Comedy).

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AMC...