Did it all start with The Killing’s Sarah Lund and her chunky woollen jumper? “I do believe the success of Scandinavian series has given the wider world an appetite for their talents,” says Mike Goodridge, London‑based founder of Good Chaos who is now co-producing three Nordic features.
There are many theories why Nordic films are so popular internationally right now. You could go back much further than UK broadcasting giant BBC buying The Killing, The Bridge and Borgen in the early 2000s to the region’s strong auteur traditions exemplified by the likes of Ingmar Bergman, through to Dogme 95 making international waves or Aki Kaurismaki bringing Finnish black comedy to the world.
The Nordics are certainly having a boom time. Another Round won the 2021 international feature Oscar and the 2022 shortlist had four of its 15 selections from the Nordics (with two — Denmark’s Flee and Norway’s The Worst Person In The World — achieving nominations). There were 11 Nordic titles showcased at Cannes 2021, Finland had a record four features at Sundance and now there are nine Nordic selections at the Berlinale.
Creative boom
So is it something in the fjords? The experts say there are a multitude of reasons why the Nordics — Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden — are booming creatively.
Steady government financial support is one obvious factor: each of the countries has a national film institute that funds local productions and co‑productions; there are also regional funders such as Swedish powerhouse Film i Vast and pan-regional funder Nordisk Film & TV Fond, which is backed by public and private companies. And streamers such as Netflix and local players like Viaplay are investing more and more into high-standard, local-language content.
Liselott Forsman, CEO of Nordisk Film & TV Fond, says that creators have been able to hit the sweet spot between artistic and commercial projects. “Thanks to streaming services, the artistic and the popular have been combined,” she asserts. “So much content is made that only those things with originality raise above the bar. In the Nordics, we have fought to engage an audience and also to have relevance. That’s something the public service companies have fought for — it’s never been a sausage factory pushing production after production.”
Forsman adds: “There are the festival films and the films that attract large audiences, and that zone in between is something we’re good at in the Nordics.”
One such example is Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round, a box-office hit at home and abroad, also beloved by critics and festivals (it was selected for Cannes 2020, played at Toronto and won the best acting prize at San Sebastian).
Ruben Östlund is another example of a filmmaker who appeals to festivals, critics and audiences alike. “He has humour and people identify with his characters,” says Forsman. “He plays around with form without scaring anybody and also without making any compromises.”
Östlund’s new film Triangle Of Sadness has assembled many Scandinavian and international partners. But none of them wants to try to change Östlund’s unique voice. As Forsman says: “The most local is the most global — that was understood in the Nordics back from 1990.” That was the year the fund was established, encouraging the countries’ films and TV shows to maintain their own country and filmmaker’s personality but also helping them cross borders.
Private investors understand this, too. As Alexander Bastin, SVP and CEO of NENT Studios, told a recent Nordisk Film & TV Fond panel: “If you don’t pursue localness, ie ‘terroir’, you will miss out on global opportunities. We need to tell the best local stories to entice the audience. It’s not an option to go for equalised generic content.”
Danish producer Monica Hellström (Flee) adds that the streamers entering the Nordic market in a big way “have opened up more possibilities… they have made it possible to produce much more content, and also more national content that has a clear international ambition.”
Close collaboration
Way back in 1959 — decades before the word ‘streamer’ existed — public service broadcasters across the region were collaborating formally on series. “Why it has been so easy for us to co-produce is that we share history, we share the same welfare of societies and the same values,” says Forsman. “But as nationalities we are different, and we have learned to see differences and share what unites us.”
Each of the countries has a small population, so working together on projects of scale to travel at least within the region — or beyond — is long‑established practice. Hellström says: “International collaborations and focus has always been key for many filmmakers in the north, as our own markets are not big enough and therefore we’re often dependent on selling our films abroad.”
Some recent successes have crossed even further borders — Flee of course; Christian Tafdrup’s Sundance hit Speak No Evil was shot in Denmark, the Netherlands and Italy; Compartment No. 6 shot mostly in Russia; Triangle Of Sadness did much of its filming in Greece. Berlinale Panorama selection Beautiful Beings, directed by Iceland’s Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson, is a co-production with Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.
Tafdrup says his film Speak No Evil was made stronger by shooting across Denmark, Italy and the Netherlands. “It was also just fun to shoot abroad,” he adds. “Here in Denmark, we know everyone when we’re casting. So it was great on the Dutch casting to meet 15 actors and actresses who I didn’t know at all. I think it’s good to be a stranger as a director, because sometimes at home, I feel too safe. We’ve seen the same streets in Copenhagen across many films. So being on different ground gives you some kind of freedom.”
Goodridge’s slate at Good Chaos includes Triangle Of Sadness, Finnish director Jalmari Helander’s Second World War action film Immortal and Northern Comfort, the latest feature from Iceland’s Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson.
Goodridge notes that, on a practical level, the Nordics make easy co‑production partners because everyone speaks English (indeed Triangle Of Sadness will be Östlund’s first film mostly in the English language). But on a more artistic level, he says: “I have always loved the culture of storytelling in the individual territories of the Nordics, and I do feel very distinct cultures in each of the countries. I believe there is a freshness of approach and very clear authorial voices there.”
Hellström believes Bafta and Oscar contender Flee benefited not just financially but also creatively from all its partners. “The perspectives of other countries are important to heighten the quality of any film that has international ambition,” she says. “The fact our French co-producers, Vivement Lundi! and Arte France, challenged aspects of Flee along the process and brought on board talented creatives to work with Jonas and the team from [animation company] Suncreature only made the storytelling and process better.”
That tradition of collaboration is vital, Hellström adds. “We’ve always worked across borders. This open-mindedness to collaboration has strengthened the films, as we learn from each other, share talent and stay curious to ways of telling stories.”
Hot upcoming Nordic titles sold at EFM
Charades is selling Northern Comfort, Icelandic director Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson’s first English-language film, now shooting with an international cast including Timothy Spall and Sverrir Gudnason.
Danish director Malou Reymann’s second feature Unruly had a strong response after footage was shown at Göteborg’s Work In Progress event. The drama is about teenage girls at a 1930s home for “morally feeble” young women. TrustNordisk handles sales.
REinvent is selling The Wife director Bjorn Runge’s drama Burn All My Letters, starring Bill Skarsgard, Asta Kamma August and Gustav Lindh.
For kids, Dutch Features Global Entertainment is selling Swedish family film Mini Zlatan And Uncle Darling. Les Films Du Losange has Norway-Belgium family animation Titina, based on the true story of an explorer’s dog on an expedition to the North Pole; and Sola Media is selling Norwegian family film Three Wishes For Cinderella starring pop star Astrid S.
Some hotly anticipated debut features in the market include Finnish director Mikko Myllylahti’s The Woodcutter’s Story, sold by Totem; Finnish director Aino Suni’s Heartbeast (sold by Kinology), about a 17-year-old rapper who has a powerful connection with her hew French stepsister; and Karoline Lyngbye’s Superposition (sold by TrustNordisk), a Danish thriller about a family fighting for their lives in a Swedish forest. Norwegian newcomer Erika Calmeyer delivers suspense drama Storm starring Ane Dahl Torp, while theatre veteran Christian Lollike makes his feature debut with Danish satire The Cake Dynasty (sold by LevelK).
On the episodic side, Lars von Trier is readying the third and final season of cult hit The Kingdom, being readied for a 2023 launch and sold by TrustNordisk, continuing his frightening and funny story about good and evil in a Danish hospital. The cast features Ghita Norby and Nicolas Bro.
REinvent recently struck a BBC Four deal for six-part series Trom, the first international-scale TV production set in the Faroe Islands (Denmark is a co‑producer). Ulrich Thomsen stars as a journalist who returns to the Faroes when his daughter is in danger.
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