As of next month, NRK will have only one Drama unit headed by Ivar Køhn (pictured) following the merger of its Commissioning Department and in-house Drama Department. The restructuring comes as NRK Drama is preparing for a busy 2016.
Head of Drama Ivar Køhn told nordiskfilmogtvfond.com that the merger at NRK Drama is meant to ‘develop a coherent and single Drama strategy and to use the Department’s funds as best as possible. Projects will continue to be produced either in-house or with independent companies as main producers.
“There are great talents out there in Norway. Today competition from other traditional broadcasters and non-linear players is heating up to attract the best people. This is thrilling. But it’s all the more important for us at NRK to offer a stable, attractive and long-term production environment.”
Asked how the current Drama staff would be hit by the merger, Køhn said: “We are currently working on this new structure and will soon decide what is really needed for our Drama department. But inevitably there will be changes.”
Crime in Finnmark
Meanwhile NRK Drama has just greenlit a new ambitious crime thriller: the 7x52’ serial drama Monster written by newcomer Hans Christian Storrøsten. The experienced director Anne Sewitsky (Happy Happy) and cinematographer Jørgen Johansson (The Bridge) are attached to the project executive produced by Lasse Greve Alsos.
Jakob Oftebro (Kon-Tiki) plays Joel Dreyer, an investigator from Oslo who is sent up north to the region of Finnmark to work on a crime scene. He feels like a fish out of water in the remote community where he has to collaborate with the young local investigator Helle Gilbert (Ingvild Holthe Bygdnes), an old sheriff (Bjørn Sundquist) while dealing with the matriarch Margot van Gemert (Gørild Mauseth), head of a criminal enterprise.
Køhn says the estimated budget is NOK 70 million, on par with NRK’s other upcoming thriller Nobel and TV2’s Occupied. So far co-production partners include DR, SVT and London-based DRG handles world distribution. Filming started this week and will last until April 2016 with a premiere set for early 2017.
Motlys and football
NRK Drama is also targeting the family audience with the football series Hjemmebane (‘Home game’) based on an original script by up-and-coming Johan Fasting. The 10x45’ series is produced by NRK’s Vegard Eriksen Stenberg with Motlys’ Yngve Sæther and Vilje Kathrine Hagen. “We are extremely pleased to collaborate with Motlys on this innovative family drama about a football club that hires the first Norwegian female coach for the top level male team. The coach tries to save the team and has particularly high hopes for a 16 year-old player, “explains Køhn. “Football is such a fascination and rich universe for storytelling and it hasn’t been brought to the screens a lot."
No director is yet attached to the project that should go into production in the summer 2016.
NRK Drama’s next original dramas set to premiere in 2016 include Mammon Season 2, the war drama/political thriller Nobel (Monster Scripted) and medical thriller Valkyrien (Tordenfilm).