Finnish Drama Moves Beyond Nordic Noir: ‘We’ve All Seen the Body in the Snow’

Naman Ramachandran Premium documentary titles featuring iconic musicians including John Lennon, Freddie Mercury, Tupac Shakur and Amy Winehouse have sold widely for BBC Studios.Rogan productions’ feature-length documentary for BBC Two, “Freddie Mercury: The Final Act,” charts the final chapter of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury’s life story. International sales include the U.S.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentFremantle has acquired a 70% stake in Italy’s Lux Vide, the prominent TV production company that has been steadily raising its standing in the international arena, most recently with the high-end TV series “Medici,” “Devils” and “Leonardo.”The long-gestating Lux Vide deal, which closed on Thursday, marks the latest acquisition by the expanding RTL-owned production and distribution giant. Fremantle, which has been on a buying spree, now owns or controls a panoply of independently operated production shingles across Europe, as well as in Israel, Australia and the U.S.Their stated goal is to invest and grow in the global scripted arena where, by their count, Fremantle delivered 81 scripted shows in 2021, including BBC One hit “The Responder,” HBO Max series “Lust,” from Sweden’s Miso Film, and Italian dystopian drama “Anna.” Previous Fremantle investments include acquiring the 12 former Nent Studios production labels in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark (now rebranded This is Nice Group); Australian-American television production company Eureka Productions; U.K.-based Naked Entertainment; French label Kwai; and Israel’s Abot Hameiri, among others.The Lux purchase also marks Fremantle’s third acquisition of a production company in Italy, where the company already owns Wildside and The Apartment, the outfit behind Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-nominated “The Hand of God.” Fremantle also recently inked a pact with Italy’s Cinecittà involving the long-term rental of six sound stages at the iconic Rome studios.Founded in 1992 by Ettore Bernabei, who was a long-time former chief of Italian pubcaster RAI, Lux Vide has since been headed by his progeny, Matilde and Luca Bernabei.

Fremantle has acquired 70% of Lux Vide, the 30-year-old Italian producer of Medici, Leonardo and Coco Chanel.

EXCLUSIVE: Amblin Partners and Nordisk Film have set a multi-year renewal of their long-standing distribution partnership.

Coronation Street fans were excited to get an extra look at the famous cobbles as the show shared a behind-the-scenes montage.

Russia has been banned from this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

Florence +The Machine has said that wanting a family “might not be as simple” for her “as it is [her] male counterparts.”Welch, who returned with new single ‘King’ this week, made the comment in a statement that accompanied the release.“As an artist, I never actually thought about my gender that much. I just got on with it,” Welch said in the statement.She continued: “I was as good as the men and I just went out there and matched them every time.“But now, thinking about being a woman in my thirties and the future, I suddenly feel this tearing of my identity and my desires. To be a performer but also to want a family might not be as simple for me as it is for my male counterparts.”Welch continued: “I had modelled myself almost exclusively on male performers, and for the first time I felt a wall come down between me and my idols as I have to make decisions they did not.”The new song’s lyrics also allude to this when she sings “We argue in the kitchen about whether to have children/ About the world ending and the scale of my ambition/ And how much is art really worth…I am no mother, I am no bride, I am king.”While the next Florence + The Machine album has still yet to be officially announced, ‘King’ marks the band’s first new music release since 2021’s ‘Call Me Cruella’, which featured in the Disney film Cruella.They are also set to make their live comeback this summer, playing a host of European headline festival sets.

Naman Ramachandran U.K. broadcaster ITV has commissioned real-life drama “Stonehouse,” from “A Very English Scandal” writer John Preston, directed by BAFTA-nominated Jon S. Baird (“Stan & Ollie”).

Florence + The Machine have shared a clip of new music over on TikTok – you can listen to it below.It comes after the band updated their website and confirmed their forthcoming return earlier today (February 22).Their website shows fifteen cards, one of which is the ‘King’ card, which was sent out to fans. The remaining fourteen are currently face-down.

Florence + The Machine have updated their website and confirmed their forthcoming return.The Florence Welch-led band first teased their comeback yesterday, sending letters and cards to fans marked ‘Chapter 1’.Now, their website has been updated to show fifteen cards, one of which is the ‘King’ card sent out to fans. The remaining fourteen are currently face-down.

Finnish skier Remi Lindholm went viral this weekend after he revealed just how cold his body was during the Olympic men’s 50km mass start cross country skiing race.

EXCLUSIVE: Copenhagen-based REinvent International Sales has closed two significant deals on Omerta 6/12, a Finnish action thriller.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentFor such a small and lightly populated region, the Nordics have been delivering an impressive number of critical darlings from a wide range of filmmakers. Nordic features hit a milestone this year, with three Cannes prize-winning films, Valdimar Jóhannsson’s “Lamb,” Juho Kuosmanen’s “Compartment No.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentOne of Scandinavia’s leading film distributors, Scanbox Entertainment is changing ownership with a new board including CEO Thor Sigurjonsson. The company was bought back from Scanbox Chairman Joni Sighvatsson. New owners include COO Kim William Beich, commercial director Torben Thorup Jorgensen, and producer Chris Briggs.

Manori Ravindran International EditorA crowdpleaser that quickly became a word-of-mouth hit in Cannes, Juho Kuosmanen’s “Compartment No. 6” follows Finnish academic Laura (Seidi Haarla) who strikes up an unlikely friendship with Russian miner Ljoha (Yuriy Borisov) on a train from Moscow to Murmansk, a city in northwestern Russia. The Finnish film, which has drawn parallels to the Before Sunrise trilogy, was quickly snapped up out of Cannes for major territories, including North America, by Sony Pictures Classics.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorGlobal Screen has closed a raft of sales for “The Conference,” a historically accurate drama about the Wannsee Conference in Berlin, a meeting that had only one item on the agenda: the organization of the systematic mass murder of 11 million European Jews. The film has been acquired by Menemsha Films (North America), Pivot Pictures (Australia), The Klockworx (Japan), Swallow Wings (Taiwan), RAI (Italy), Flins & Piniculas (Spain), Films 4 You (Portugal), Arti Film (Benelux), Edge Entertainment (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland and Baltics), ITI Neovision (Poland), RTV (Slovenia), Italian-speaking Switzerland (RSI) and Red Cape (Israel).

Annika Pham Versatile Finnish helmer A.J. Annila (“Sauna,” “Shadow Lines,” “Peacemaker”) is on board to direct the thriller series with a working title of “ID” which marks HBO Max’s first commission of a Finnish premium TV show.Set in the art fraud world, the six-part series is co-created by seasoned writer Aleksi Bardy (“Tom of Finland,” “Moscow Noir”) and Mia Ylönen (“Bad Apples,” “Moscow Noir”) for Finnish production powerhouse Helsinki-Filmi, a subsidiary of Finland’s Aurora Studios.“ID” revolves around art fraud investigator Emma who goes undercover to infiltrate an auction house in Stockholm in order to investigate the firm’s connection to a notorious money launderer known as Blanko.

Annika Pham 2021 was another annus horribilis for cinemagoing in the Nordics, due to on-going and strict Covid restrictions that halved admissions compared to pre-pandemic levels.Released late September/early October when cinemas for once ran at full capacity, “No Time to Die” literally saved the film year, and even ranked No.  1 among all James Bond movies ever released in Denmark. Aside from Sweden, strong homegrown offers such as “Checkered Ninja 2” in Denmark, “Class Reunion 3” in Finland, “Cop Secret” in Iceland, “Three Wishes for Cinderella” in Norway enabled the Nordic nations to secure bullish market shares.In 2021, “No Time to Die” smashed all B.O.

Alissa Simon Film CriticDanish debut feature helmer-writer Tea Lindeburg’s period drama “As In Heaven,” that portrays a fateful summer day and night in 19th century farming society, came away the biggest winner at the 44th Göteborg Film Festival, scoring on Saturday the best Nordic film kudo, this year worth approx. $44,000.Meanwhile, Seidi Haarla of Finland’s Oscar-shortlisted drama, “Compartment No.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentCharades (“Petrov’s Flu,””Diamantino”) has come on board “Hit Big”, a dark humor-laced crime film set in Spain and directed by critically acclaimed Finnish filmmaker, Jukka-Pekka Valkeapaa (“They Have Escaped”). Currently in post, the film is being presented at the work-in-progress sidebar of Goteborg Festival’s Nordic Film Market.