Scandinavian Powerhouse REinvent Adds ‘L/over’ Starring Krista Kosonen, ‘Hybris’ to MipTV Slate, Led by Canneseries’ ‘Dark Horse,’ ‘Painkiller’ (EXCLUSIVE)
One of the Nordic region’s biggest providers of premium series, Copenhagen-based REinvent International Sales, will make a splash at this week’s Canneseries festival and MipTV market.
For the second consecutive year, the sales, financing and packaging banner has two titles in competition: the Danish drama thriller “Dark Horse”, due to world premiere in the main competition, and the short form Swedish dramedy entry “Painkiller”, which initially bowed at the Göteborg Film Festival.
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“Last year we had the Norwegian political drama “Power Play” which won best series, and the Swedish romantic dramedy “Out of Touch” in the short form section. Canneseries is a great platform to get the hype going on your series,” commented Helene Aurø, REinvent sales and marketing director.
Turning on this year’s competition candidates, Aurø points out that both “Dark Horse” and “Painkiller” deal with mother/daughter relationships.
The Danish drama thriller “Dark Horse,” ordered by TV2, explores a teenager girl’s attempt to liberate herself from her controlling mother to fatal consequences. In the title roles are Birgitte Hjort Sørensen (“Borgen”, “Pitch Perfect 2”) and rising talent Josephine Højbjerg.
“It’s a multi-layered story with at its core, the story of a self-centred mother and her abusive relationship with her daughter. But there is also an interesting cultural clash angle as the two women come back to rural Denmark after having travelled around the world. We immediately loved the premise, the cast and saw the international potential in it,” said Aurø.
In a totally different genre, “Painkiller” features Balkan strong-willed mother and cleaning lady Djana and her daughter, the hot artist Andrea. Both try to make life better for one another but keep failing. “It’s a quirky dramedy by one of Sweden’s most talented auteur writer-directors, Gabriela Pichler” Aurø said about the SVT series.
Unveiled exclusively to Variety, two fresh pickups will be teased to global buyers at MipTV market in Cannes.
The six-part series “L/over,” commissioned by MTV/C More, is the latest sample of Finnish event dramas combining “very high production value, top talent, and a compelling storytelling,” Aurø said.
The project is the brainchild of Marika Makaroff, producer and founder of Finnish/UK powerhouse Gutsy Animations, credited for the Emmy-award nominated animated series “Moominvalley.”
For her first live-action fiction project, Makaroff has teamed up with co-creators Nina Honkanen and U.K. writer/actor Frog Stone (“Bucket”). The latter also serves as head-writer, sharing the writers’ room with Bafta-nominated Kevin Rundle (“Hollyoaks”) and Sophie Swithinbank. Aleksi Salmenperä (“White Wall”, “Bad Family”) is concept director.
With a clever title style playing on ‘over’ and ‘L’ for love, the drama thriller explores how and why abusive control, sometimes mistaken for love, can be the greatest danger in a relationship, and what if ‘the one’ is the one who could destroy you?’, reads the logline.
Star actor Krista Kosonen (“Beforeigners”, “Blade Runner 2049”) plays single mother Roosa who falls for the intriguing novelist Juha (“Deadwind”, “Bullets”), but soon cracks appear in what seems like the love story of the century. “The boyfriend is so creepy that you feel your body hair sticking up”, says Aurø who will introduce a teaser trailer at Cannes.
The second new pickup is the Norwegian young adult short form series “Hybris” from creators/writing duo Karianne Lund (“Occupied”, “State of Happiness”) and Hege Gaarder Nordlie (“Hjerteslag”). Mixing crime and humour, the show addresses gossip and rumours in an innovative way.
Rising young talent Sjur Vatne Brean (“Power Play”, “Rod Knock”) plays the popular 19-year-old Marius who’s being accused of sexual assault. But he has no recollection of what happened during that school trip. Was he the one who put a Barbie doll in the ass of a classmate?? To clear his name, Marius and two of his friends start to search for the truth.
Commissioned by NRK, the show first aired on the Norwegian pubcaster in September and will next air on DR in Denmark and Yle in Finland.
“It’s a smaller TV show, but there is a market for quality YA content and we try to have something for everybody,” Aurø said.
The sales veteran also highlights two completed and hotly anticipated Finnish series: the suspense-driven disaster drama “Seconds” from Fire Monkey prodco, co-produced by Finnish pubcaster Yle and Germany’s NDR; and psycho-thriller “The Girl Who Disappeared,” produced by ReelMedia for MTV/C More.
Commenting on market trends, Aurø says: “The market hasn’t fully recovered post-COVID and considering the challenging micro-economics, streamers and broadcasters alike are still fine-tuning their content strategies and cautiously buying. That said, the market has picked up since Berlin and there is a renewed energy. We are trying to find more windowing solutions, new ways to create visibility for our content so that nobody loses money,” she said.
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