‘A Zombie Film Unlike Anything Before’: TrustNordisk Picks Up Norway’s ‘Handling the Undead’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Succession creator Jesse Armstrong, who saw his HBO series take home four Emmys this season, made it brief, really brief, backstage.

Manchester City defender Aymeric Laporte has returned to first-team training and also dropped a tantalising hint over his prospective comeback. City are set to take on Borussia Dortmund and Wolves in what is shaping up to be an action-packed few days for Pep Guardiola and his team across the main competitions.

Jessica Kiang It’s kept deliberately vague where precisely Italian music-video director Francesco Carrozzini has set his feature debut, an adaption of the Jo Nesbø bestseller novel “Midnight Sun,” which closed a prestige-laden Venice Film Festival on an improbable note. One leans toward, maybe, Norway? But it could be Iceland or Greenland or any one of those far-flung, fjordy locales that usually turn out to belong to Denmark. It’s not like the language cues help: The dialogue is in English and the grand, windswept coastal landscapes are carefully scrubbed of signage that might, by so much as a single ‘ø,’ betray their provenance. The actors’ nationalities are less use still. Headlined by Italy’s Alessandro Borghi (“The Eight Mountains”), the rest of the cast is stacked with UK talent (Charles Dance, Peter Mullan, Jessica Brown Findlay), though we do know for sure, by the way the sun never sets and the mood is set firmly to “Nordic despair,” that we’re definitely not in either of those countries. Not to worry: Even without understanding exactly where we are, “The Hanging Sun” will feel familiar as a pair of worn-in pyjamas to anyone who has switched on a TV in the last decade. Because really, we’re in Scandiland, an amalgam location of every movie and television show from the recent “Scandi-noir” wave, a place sinister with secrets, seasonal affective disorders and Sarah Lund sweaters. 

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent  SF Studios (“A Man Called Otto”) is set to produce and distribute “The Abyss,”  a female-driven Swedish disaster film directed by Richard Holm (“Johan Falk”) and chronicling the tragic events that took place in the mining town of Kiruna. Now shooting on location, the movie is headlined by Tuva Novotny(“Annihilation”) who stars alongside  Kardo Razazzi (“Honour”)and Peter Franzen (“Vikings”), Felicia Truedsson (“Young Royals”), Tintin Poggats Sarri (“Charter”) and Edvin Ryding (“Young Royals”). “The Abyss” stars Novotny as Frigga, who tries to balance her risky job as a security manager in the Kiirunavaara mine with her family life, her new love Dabir (Razazzi) and her ex, who doesn’t want to let go (Franzén). But when the ground suddenly starts to shake under their feet, the puzzle of life doesn’t matter and the struggle to not be pulled into the abyss begins. 

EXCLUSIVE: Another Round star Maria Bonnevie is leading Viaplay’s latest Norwegian original, a comedy-drama inspired by award-winning director Bård Breien’s unusual childhood.

On an abnormally hot summer day in Oslo, a strange electric field surrounds the city as a collective migraine spreads across town. TVs, lightbulbs, and electronics go haywire, the chaos reaching a debilitating crescendo when suddenly, it’s over.

Neon has acquired North American and UK rights to the horror-drama Handling the Undead, marking the narrative feature debut of Thea Hvistendahl, who previously directed the documentary Adjø Montebello and several short films, including the SXSW Grand Jury Award-nominated Virgins4lyfe. The project reteams the distributor with Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie, who starred in its Oscar-nominated romantic drama The Worst Person in the World, directed by Joachim Trier.

Ed Meza @edmezavar France TV Distribution is ratcheting up global sales for the hit Gallic crime series “Bright Minds,” with deals ranging from Japan to the U.S., Canada and Latin America. In its third season, the show, which airs on France 2, follows a police detective who finds a brilliant partner in a young autistic woman with encyclopedic knowledge of criminal investigations who works in the police records bureau. Together, they realize their complementary skills are the key to solving cases. France TV Distribution, which is presenting its current lineup this week at the Unifrance Rendez-Vous market in Biarritz, sold the show to Japanese public broadcaster NHK, which has been airing it since July.

Trinidad Barleycorn At the Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Biarritz, Studiocanal revealed further sales on its high-budget sci-fi thriller “Infiniti,” produced by Empreinte Digitale and Federation Entertainment Belgium. The show has already sold to more than 60 territories internationally, including Spain, Portugal, Latin America and Brazil, and has now been acquired by AMC Networks International, SBS (Australia), Now Studio (Hong Kong), TV2 (Norway), NOVA (Greece), Go3 (Baltics), HOT(Israel) and Telus (English speaking Canada). More deals are in the pipeline. “Infiniti” blends a sci-fi crime thriller with political intrigue and a classic love story woven through, that echoes the current global space race. 

Manori Ravindran International Editor More than a year since SkyShowtime was first announced, the SVOD is ready to join the streaming fray in Europe, Variety can reveal. The new platform — a joint venture between Comcast and Paramount Global that was first unveiled in August 2021 — will officially launch on Sept. 20 in the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, before expanding into the Netherlands later this year in Q4. (The service received regulatory approval in Europe back in February.) Meanwhile, the SVOD will continue its roll out across Spain, Portugal, Andorra, and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) over the coming months and through Q1 of 2023. CEE markets include Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Marta Balaga Following the Venice Film Festival premiere of her Biennale College Cinema title “Palimpsest” – about two people that start to age backwards – Finnish helmer Hanna Västinsalo will continue to play with sci-fi elements in “Space Hobos: How to Bum a Ride from Sector B12 to Module C9.”  “It’s about workers like plumbers, welders or cleaners, trying to make their way in the world of space travel,” Västinsalo explains to Variety in Italy.  “The core of the story is drawn from my own experience of being a starving artist and trying to make it. Not always knowing how to pay rent or having money to buy groceries.”

Aston Villa manager Steven Gerrard jokingly pleaded with Pep Guardiola to rest Erling Haaland when his men lock horns with champions Manchester City.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Directing Penélope Cruz in Venice competition title “L’immensità,” Italy’s Emanuele Crialese is teaming with Argentina’s Nicolás Gil Lavedra to produce “Rona,” the second feature by Emiliano Torres, writer-director of San Sebastian Special Jury Prize winner “The Winter.” Produced by Crialese’s Italy-based Now and Buenos Aires Gamán Cine, set up by Lavedra and Torres, “Rona” is being structured as a majority European production and will shoot mainly in English. Lavedra, whose recent production credits include Paz Encina’s Rotterdam Tiger Award winner “Eami,” will oversee production.  “Rona” is one of the highest-profile of 14 titles at this year’s San Sebastian Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, one of the Spanish festival’s centrepiece industry events.

Annika Pham New Europe Film Sales has added U.K. distributor Signature Entertainment to the slew of global buyers won over by Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson’s “Beautiful Beings,” which has racked up awards from Poland, Bulgaria, Italy and Taiwan, since its first bow at the last Berlinale Panorama. Earlier deals were closed with the U.S. (Altered Innocence), Hungary (Vertigo), Benelux (Arti Film), Germany/Austria (Salzgeber), Spain (Filmin), and CEE (HBO).Billed by Variety reviewer Jessica Kiang as an “Icelandic coming-of age, radiant with violence and tenderness,” Guðmundsson’s drama revolves around a young boy raised by a clairvoyant mother who decides to adopt a bullied misfit into his gang of outsiders. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Seasoned Finnish producer Ilkka Matila (“The Eternal Road”, “All the Sins”) of MRP Matila Röhr has signed with Estonia’s Taska Film and locked early support from the Finnish Film Institute and local commercial channel MTV3 for the $2.7m film “Between the Hammer and the Sickle.” Nordisk Film holds Scandinavian rights. To be pitched on Aug. 24 at the Nordic Co-Production Market in Haugesund, Norway, the title will be one of Matila’s most defining projects, a feature which he believes will stay, along the lines of the multi-awarded “Mother of Mine” or “The Eternal Road.” “Between the Hammer and the Sickle” will be one of the first features ever to portray Finland’s illustrious former president Urho Kekkonen. Head of state for nearly 26 years, Kekkonen served as the longest-serving Finnish president from 1956 until 1981 and masterminded his country’s policy of neutrality, keeping at bay the threatening Soviet Union with which Finland shares 800 miles of border.

The 2022 Nordic Council Film Prize Nominees Announced The five nominees for the prestigious Nordic Council Film Prize have been announced. The list of nominees includes Joachim Trier’s Oscar-nominated The Worst Person in the World, Hlynur Pálmason’s Godland, Teemu Nikki’s The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic, Lamb by Valdimar Jóhannson, and Clara Sola, directed by Nathalie Álvarez Mesén. The Nordic Council Film Prize, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, is awarded to “an artistically significant, Nordic-produced full-length feature film with cinema distribution”. The award comes with a €41,000 cash prize shared equally between the winning film’s director, screenwriter and producer. The winner will be announced on November 1 at a ceremony in Helsinki, Finland. Last year’s winner was Flee directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen.

Annika Pham REinvent International Sales has clinched a banner sale to Gussi for Latin America on the Norwegian pic “Storm,” which is screening at Haugesund’s New Nordic Films market, running Aug. 23-26.The Norwegian suspense drama, penned by Johan Fasting (“Home Ground”, “Ninjababy”), is the feature debut of Erika Calmeyer, episodic director of Netflix’s hit teen show “Young Royals” and creator of NRK’s anthology show “Nudes.”Headlining the pic is Ane Dahl Torp (“The Wave”, “Home Ground”), cast as single mum Elin, faced with a terrible dilemma, following the death of her son Ulrik (6).

Marta Balaga Five Nordic features are nominated for the Nordic Council Film Prize. The prestigious recognition, celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, was first awarded to Aki Kaurismäki’s “The Man Without a Past.”Hlynur Pálmason’s “Godland,” Teemu Nikki’s “The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic,” “Lamb” by Valdimar Jóhannson, Joachim Trier’s Oscar-nominated “The Worst Person in the World” and “Clara Sola,” directed by Nathalie Álvarez Mesén, will all vie for the award.It is billed as a prize that celebrates “a unique filmmaking vision, deeply rooted in Nordic culture” and comes with a sum of DKK 300,000 ($40,000), shared equally between the director, screenwriter and producer.

Marta Balaga Paris-based Alief has secured international rights to Icelandic documentary “Band.”Following its world premiere at HotDocs earlier this year, the film will now be shown in Haugesund’s New Nordic Films section, with an Icelandic premiere set for Nov. 4.