News

One of the Nordic region’s biggest providers of premium series, Copenhagen-based REinvent International Sales, will make a splash at this week’s Canneseries festival and MipTV market.

For the second consecutive year, the sales, financing and packaging banner has two titles in competition: the Danish drama thriller “Dark Horse”, due to world premiere in the main competition, and the short form Swedish dramedy entry “Painkiller”, which initially bowed at the Göteborg Film Festival.

“Last year we had the Norwegian political drama “Power Play” which won best series, and the Swedish romantic dramedy “Out of Touch” in the short form section. Canneseries is a great platform to get the hype going on your series,” commented Helene Aurø, REinvent sales and marketing director.

Turning on this year’s competition candidates, Aurø points out that both “Dark Horse” and “Painkiller” deal with mother/daughter relationships.

The Danish drama thriller “Dark Horse,” ordered by TV2,...

Exclusive: The Right Stuff and The Bonfire of the Vanities scribe Tom Wolfe is the subject of new documentary Radical Wolfe, an adaptation of a 2015 Vanity Fair article by Moneyball and The Big Short author Michael Lewis who was a longtime personal friend of Wolfe.

Kino Lorber has acquired all North American distribution rights to Richard Dewey’s under-the-radar film, which is currently in post-production and set to be released theatrically later this year.

Talking heads include Michael Lewis, Jann Wenner, Gay Talese, Lynn Nesbit, Terry McDonell, Tom Junod, Christopher Buckley, Niall Ferguson, and Alexandra Wolfe.

From a beat reporter at the Washington Post, to an overnight sensation as the leader of the New Journalism movement, Wolfe is one of America’s most celebrated journalist-turned-novelists of the latter 20th Century. His books included The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, The Bonfire Of The Vanities, and A Man in Full.

“Supergirl” star David Harewood has boarded Karen Bryson’s directorial debut “Monochromatic” as an executive producer, Variety can exclusively reveal.

Bryson, who played Elinor Stone in Zack Snyder’s “Justice League,” was awarded the Goldfinch Female First Flights Short Film Fund to make the project.

“Monochromatic” tells the story of a young girl of color set in 1970s London. The film “shares a story of the inevitable moment a six-year-old girl realises the world operates with bias when it comes to the color of her skin,” reads the logline.

Bryson used real footage of a 1977 National Front March in the short, which is set to premiere this year.

“My aim for ‘Monochromatic’ is to hold a mirror up, inviting an audience to ask questions of themselves,” Bryson said in a statement. “It touches on the concept of nurture, what we see and hear, consciously or unconsciously shape who we are,...

Mikko Pöllä and Roope Lehtinen, seasoned Finnish showrunners and co-founders of Fire Monkey, are bringing to market a handful of premium dramas in post and development.

Headlining their production slate under REinvent’s sales banner is the thriller “Enemy of the People,” from “Man in Room 301” helmer Mikko Kuparinen, currently in post.

Co-created by Lehtinen and Timo Varpio (“Easy Living”), the eight-part TV show boasts a stellar cast, including Kreeta Salminen, Mikko Nousiainen (“Peacemaker”), Tobias Zilliacus (“Beartown”), and Johannes Holopainen (“All the Sins”).

Co-penned by Varpio and Fire Monkey’s in-house writer Laura Suhonen, the thriller explores investigative reporting in an era of trolls and fake news. After writing a critical piece about the local town’s soccer star and biggest celebrity, involved in a dubious business scheme, reporter Katja Salonen finds herself drawn into a whirlpool of lies, deceit and abuse of power, in the middle of which...

A daring character-driven crime drama about motherhood, “Snow Angels” is one of the highlights of this year’s Berlinale Series selection. Set in wintertime Stockholm, the gripping story follows three women — a mother, a policewoman and a child nurse — whose fates become intertwined following the disappearance of a 5-week-old infant.

The series is headlined by Josefin Asplund (“Vikings”), Eva Melander (“Border”), Maria Rossing (“Splitting Up Together”) and Ardalan Esmaili (“The Charmer”). Produced by Sweden’s Yellow Bird and Denmark’s Happy Ending Film, the six-part show is being represented in international markets by REinvent which unveiled a sale to Germany’s Ard Degeto at the start of market.

Variety talked to the strong female duo behind the gripping drama, the creator and writer Mette Heeno (“Splitting Up Together”), and the director Anna Zackrisson.

What’s the genesis of “Snow Angels”?

Mette Heeno: I wanted to explore the theme of motherhood...

The character-driven, six-part crime drama is created and written by Mette Heeno.

REinvent has sold its Berlinale Series selection Snow Angels (Snöänglar) to Ard Degeto for Germany.

The character-driven, six-part crime drama is created and written by Mette Heeno (Splitting Up Together), directed by Anna Zackrisson and produced by Georgie Mathew for Sweden’s Yellow Bird and Denmark’s Happy Ending Film.

The story, set during a cold winter in Stockholm, is about three women — a mother, a policewoman and a child nurse — connected to the case of a missing infant. The cast is led by Josefin Asplund (Vikings), Eva Melander...

In this week’s International TV Newswire, MipCancun mirrors Latin American industry growth; Nice Drama and BBC Studios hire new executives; Brazil’s Globoplay platform picks up five international series; and Series Mania heads to the Big Apple for an Ifp Week spotlight.

MipCancun Underscores Latin American Growth

Markets are as volatile and fast-changing as the industry as large. As Toronto’s spluttered this week, constrained by the challenge of U.S. distribution at large, Reed Midem announced a mouth-watering line up of speakers for Mexico’s MipCancun: “Hernan” showrunners Curro Royo and Julián de Tavira; ex-Netflix honcho Erik Barmack, now at new shingle Wild Sheep Content; Marcelo Tamburri, VP of scripted development at Turner Latin America; and Joanna Lombardi, Movistar head of fiction for Latin America.

Produced by Mexico’s Dopamine and Spain’s Onza Ent, “Hernan” is sold by A & E Network Intl. and is set to...