Exclusive: The international spy thriller West of Liberty and Norwegian crime show Kieler Street are set to start filming next year.

The 6x45’ series West of Liberty (Väster om friheten) is produced by Gunnar Carlsson, Director of Content and Development at Anagram Sweden, with Bettina Wente of Network Movie, Germany for the Swedish and German public broadcasters SVT and ZDF.

The show is based on Thomas Engström first book in a quartet about Ludwig Licht, former Stasi agent and CIA informant. The 55-year-old (played by Wotan Wilke Möhring) works as a freelance problem solver and barkeeper in Kreuzberg, Berlin. When his former CIA colleague Clive Barner contacts him to investigate on a case about a corrupt leader of a whistle-blower site, he returns to the shadowy world of the intelligence service.

The show is adapted by Sweden’s Sara Heldt (Death of a Pilgrim) and UK co-writer Donna Sharpe (The Team, Who Do You Think You Are?), and directed by Austria’s Barbara Eder (Thank You for Bombing, Best Director and Screenplay at the Austrian Film Awards 2015).

Gunnar Carlsson told nordicfilmandtvnews.com that the high end international show will be shot mostly in English, with some German.

West of Liberty is co-produced by Film i Skåne, Film i Väst, in association with YLE, TV2 Norge, support from the Swedish Film Institute and Medien Stiftung NRW. Filming in Germany will start mi-February, and the premiere is set for the fall 2018. Anagram Sweden holds rights to all books part of the Ludwig Licht Quartet.

ITV Studios Global Entertainment has also picked up distribution rights to the Norwegian drama thriller Kieler Street (Kielergata) produced by Anagram Norway for TV2 Norge.
The 10x43’ original show tells of former criminal Jonas who has assumed a new identity and lives in one of Scandinavia’s most law-abiding towns. But when a dead body appears, some of the inhabitants show hidden identities. The slow-burn drama series will follow the former criminals trying to fit in and lead a ‘normal’ suburban life, and the locals with their repressed feelings, all ready to explode in any given moment. The character-driven drama is directed by genre specialist Patrik Syversen (Hellfjord, Manhunt), co-creator and co-writer with Jesper Sundnes and Stig Frode Henriksen.

Anagram Norway’s managing director and producer Anne Kolbjørnsen said: “Kieler Street will be a major international show, shot organically in English and Scandinavian languages, with an A-list cast.” The project is set to start filming in January 2018.