Northern highlights

Northern highlights


By DQ
January 29, 2025

Ones to Watch

As the winner of the Nordic Series Script Award 2025 is announced, read DQ’s interviews with all five nominees, whose work includes Families Like Ours, Money Shot, Quisling, Pressure Point and The School of Housewives. 

For the ninth year, the winner of the Nordic Series Script Award has been handed out in recognition of outstanding writing in a Nordic drama series. As is now traditional, five series were nominated – one each from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – with the winner announced at a ceremony held last night during the Götenborg Film Festival’s TV Drama Vision event.

Supported by Nordisk Film & TV Fond, the award was first won in 2017 by Mette M Bølstad and Stephen Uhlander for Nobel, followed by Adam Price for Herrens veje (Ride Upon the Storm) a year later. Finland’s Merja Aakko and Mika Ronkainen picked up the prize in 2019 for Kaikki Synnit (All the Sins), while Sara Johnsen won in 2020 for real-life drama 22 Juli (22 July).

In 2021, Maja Jul Larsen took home the award for Ulven Kommer (Cry Wolf), a Danish series that followed a social worker tasked with investigating an allegation from a young girl that threatens to tear her family apart, and the 2022 winners were Gísli Örn Gardarsson, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson and Mikael Torfasonn for Icelandic series Verbúðin (Blackport), which charts a power struggle set against the backdrop of the country’s fishing industry in the 1980s.

Kenneth Karlstad claimed the prize in 2023 for Norwegian drama Kids in Crime, a dramatic coming-of-age story about a teenager who turns to a life of crime, while Johan Fasting, Silje Storstein and Kristin Grue shared the prize last year for Makta (Power Play), which blended period and contemporary styles to create an anarchic dramatisation of the story behind Norway’s first female prime minister.

Find out more about the winner and fellow nominees in this year’s competition, with links to DQ’s interviews with each writer.

Pelle Rådström

Winner: Pelle Rådström
Series title: Smärtpunkten (Pressure Point, pictured top of page)
From: Sweden
Original broadcaster: SVT
Produced by: Kärnfilm and Art & Bob
Distributed by: Reinvent Studios
Starring: David Dencik and Maria Sid
Air date: April 2024
Based on the true story of how renowned playwright Lars Norén and producer Isa Stenberg partnered with the dangerous inmates of a maximum-security prison to create a new play. However, amid a contentious debate on freedom of speech and government oversight lapses, the prisoners exploit their freedom, leading to bank robberies and the emergence of a neo-Nazi organisation. Tragically, their actions result in a double police murder, causing a national scandal and lasting trauma.
Read DQ’s interview with Pelle Rådström here.

 

Arnór Pálmi Arnarson and Jóhanna Fridrika Sæmundsdóttir

Nominees: Arnór Pálmi Arnarson & Jóhanna Fridrika Sæmundsdóttir
Series title: Húsó (The School of Housewives)
From: Iceland
Original broadcaster: RÚV
Produced by: Glassriver
Starring: Ebba Katrín Finnsdóttir
Air date: January 2024
Hekla, a young mother who has been in and out of rehab since she was a teenager, must now enrol in The School of Housewives to get her daughter out of foster care. But will learning to knit, bake and clean make her a better mother?
Read DQ’s interview with Arnór Pálmi Arnarson & Jóhanna Fridrika Sæmundsdóttir here.

 

Jemina Jokisalo

Nominee: Jemina Jokisalo
Series title: Toinen tuleminen (Money Shot)
From: Finland
Original broadcaster: Elisa Viihde
Produced by: Solar Republic
Distributed by: Federation Studios
Starring: Pihla Viitala and Reetta Ylä-Rautio
Air date: May 2024
Set in the world of adult films, the series stars Pihla Viitala as porn star Sari, who is left angry and upset after being fired for being too old. In her early 40s, she must now find a new way to make a living and decides to team up with aspiring director Linnea (Reetta Ylä-Rautio) to launch a new company that aspires to produce feminist erotic movies and fulfil women’s desires – and their own.
Read DQ’s interview with Jemina Jokisalo here.

 

Thomas Vinterberg

Nominees: Thomas Vinterberg & Bo Hr Hansen
Series title: Familier som vores (Families Like Ours)
From: Denmark
Original broadcasters: TV2 Denmark, Canal+ France
Produced by: Zentropa
Distributed by: StudioCanal
Starring: Amarilla August, Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Paprika Steen, Helene Reingaard Neumann, Esben Smed and Magnus Millang
Air date: October 2024
Set in the not-too-distant future, the series imagines a world where rising water levels mean Denmark will soon become inhabitable, forcing the government to order the entire country to be evacuated. Those who can afford to leave do so, while others await support from a state relocation programme as families, friends and loved ones are separated. At the centre is Laura, a high school student in love for the first time and on the brink of graduation. When news of the evacuation breaks, Laura and her family’s lives are changed forever and she is forced to choose between the people she loves the most.
Read DQ’s interview with Thomas Vinterberg here.

 

Siv Rajendram (left) and Anna Bache-Wiig

Nominees: Anna-Bache Wiig & Siv Rajendram Eliassen
Series title: Quisling
From: Norway
Original broadcaster: TV2
Produced by: Paradox
Starring: Gard B Eisvold, Anders Danielsen Lie and Lisa Carlehed
Air date: December 2024
Based on historic events. Norwegian leader Vidkun Quisling, who collaborated during the Nazis occupation, is arrested and put on trial at the end of the Second World War. The state seeks the death penalty. Maria, Quisling’s wife, does everything she can to save him and secure his legacy, while the church’s appointed priest, Peder Olsen, tries to save his soul.
Read DQ’s interview with Anna-Bache Wiig & Siv Rajendram Eliassen here.

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