Nordic Twist: Lars Blomgren talks trends in Scandi drama

Lars Blomgren recently spoke to Worldscreen News about the broad range of scripted coming out of the Scandinavian markets.

Worldscreen reports that the local market in Scandinavia offers more than nordic noir'. There's a rich cultural tradition of storytelling that unites the Scandi countries, and it is still very much alive and well, as producers from across the region deliver high-quality scripted series that garner global attention.

The focus is always 100 percent on the quality from day one, says Lars Blomgren, acknowledging, though, that it's the high-end productions from the region that travel globally. We won't greenlight until we are happy with the script, and that's a very established tradition. There are seven or eight drafts before we go into production. So, we have the time. It's also part of our character. In Sweden, we don't die from war or famine, so we have developed other kinds of anxieties, he quips.

Blomgren says that Germany was the first country outside the home region where Scandi series became big. We ended up getting 20 to 30 percent of the budget, on top of our Scandinavian budget, so we could go even higher with the quality and the development.

Scandi producers continue to look to literature for tales ripe for TV adaptation, Filmlance's production of Fredrik Backman's novel Beartown was greenlit by HBO Europe and is highly anticipated.

Blomgren says that Scandi stories with strong concepts, a fantastic setup and a unique and amazing story, are what will continue to sell best. Then you have other ones that travel because they're just so well made. It's all about the execution and the quality of the script. There's so much talent around now. We will see surprising stories on subjects that are not necessarily the sexiest ones, but suddenly people watch them because the characters are just so lovely that you want to spend time with them and follow their stories.

Read the full article here: https://worldscreen.com/tvdrama/nordic-twist/

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