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HBO Outlines its European Vision at Goteborg’s TV Drama Vision

Göteborg’s TV Drama Vision, the drama series and TV industry strand of Scandinavia’s biggest film-TV festival, has unveiled further details of its works-in-progress and project showcases, as well as keynote speakers from HBO Europe to Walter Presents.

As HBO Max lands in Europe during the second half of 2021, Antony Root, executive VP original programming and production at HBO Europe and Christian Wikander, commissioning editor and VP of Programming, HBO Nordic, discuss the streamer’s vision and creative strategy.

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European TV keynote speakers set to outline their vision include Walter Luzzolino, the face and curator behind the globally successful Walter Presents drama brand, who has co founded Eagle Eye Drama to make English-language series inspired by foreign language hits.

As always, top Nordic and international TV execs and streamers will take centre stage to discuss the upcoming trends and challenges ahead. These include drama chiefs from TV2 and DR in Denmark; Sweden’s Viaplay, TV4, and SVT; Norway’s NRK and YLE in Finland.

The Nordic TV fest, which will run fully online over Feb. 3-4, will feature a first look at work-in-progress “Blackport,” a fishy eight part tale of greed, corruption and power struggles that is being made by the Icelandic production company Vesturport, for its national public broadcaster RÚV. The project won the Berlinale Series Market CoPro pitching sessions in 2018.

Struggles in the political arena – featuring historic female figures – also dominate the Nordic series in development this year, including the 12-part political drama “Power Play.”

The November film project for public broadcaster NRK follows the build of the Norwegian Labour Party in the late ‘70s, as Gro Harlem Bruntland navigates her path to become the country’s first female prime minister.

Another drama with a strong female politician at its helm is “Vigdís,” which tells the rise of Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the world’s first democratically elected president. The four-parter’s production companies are Vesturport and Glassriver for RÚV.

Elsewhere, the festival will be showcasing Finnish drug ring thriller “506 Grams of Ural Snow” an in development project made by Aito & Haapasalo Entertainment for Finland state TV network YLE.

Beyond the Nordics, TV Drama Vision is also profiling a number of development projects from Eastern Europe, including Estonian outfit Cuba Films’ eight-part “Who Shot Otto Mueller?” that sees the death of a businessman play out like a “Rashomon”- style whodunit.
“The Abyss,” meanwhile, from Croatia’s Nukleus Film, focuses on a female detective’s hunt for a serial killer of powerful males.

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