In only three years, Helsinki Script has become a must-attend event for top drama writers/creators and key-decision makers, eager to exchange ideas and get inspired.

More than 20 keynote speakers will take centre stage on Friday September 7 in Helsinki, including top writers/creators Barbara Petronio (Suburra), Lars Lundström (Real Humans), Jeppe Gjervig Gram (Follow the Money), Kirsi Porkka (Deadwind), Toni Grisoni (The Young Pope, The City and the City), Keren Margalit (In Therapy) and Adam Price (Ride Upon the Storm).

Another highlight of the event is the European Script Awards, given out to upcoming European series and TV movie writers.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.helsinkiscript.fi

The well-connected Forsman, Yle’s executive producer of International Drama, co-founder and programme director of Helsinki Script spoke to us.

This is your third event. But what triggered your decision to organize Helsinki Script in the first place?
Liselott Forsman: Some year ago when I switched from Yle’s Swedish speaking drama where international co-financing was an imperative due to our limited budgets, to work at the Finnish speaking drama and I was surprised by how different big Yle was from the other Nordic public broadcasters. There was less international co-financing and the early development processes were shorter. It was also a more director-based culture.

Part of my job became to overlook these processes. In 2014 I chaired a group that focused particularly on series writing and after a long research period, we got support from national funds and broadcasters to start an inspirational script event in Helsinki. The budget was limited but good international networks brought us interesting speakers from all over.

By that time, in 2016, Finland was already part of the international blooming drama market, so the timing was right. The event has now been arranged and sold out twice before, and the City of Helsinki has stepped in to support the annual event.

What is unique about Helsinki Script and what can professionals get out of it?LF: Our log-line is “If it ain’t in the script it ain’t in the series”. All over Europe there are forums with broad repertoires, but we focus on the unique selling point: a good script. We share best practices in creating, commissioning and remaking good scripts. Our whole day is planned as a script that should hook and be both funny and deep.

How did you establish this year’s programme and what are the main topics?LF: It all started with a feeling of what is changing. Writers and other brand people are summoned to brainstorm around themes. Today successful suspense stories dive deeper into society than before, and genres are mixed more bravely.

In the fierce competition for attention, the fantastic stands out, but so does the deeply touching realism. Israeli writer Keren Margalit (In Therapy, The A Word, Sleeping Bear) will talk about her dialogue as action, and creators of high-end crime series about writing beyond action.

The unreal is getting more interesting thanks to new sub-genres. Two of our guests have been successful in multi-genres before writing supernatural works: the UK’s Tony Grisoni (The Young Pope, Electric Dreams) and Sweden’s Lars Lundström (Real Humans).  We investigate how the supernatural can help us understand this world. From The Young Pope we take one step towards belief and Adam Price’s working processes (from Borgen to Ride upon the Storm).

Another step leads us to the renaissance of Italian series. To better understand unreal universes, we side step to the art of game writing. The new generation is always strongly present at Helsinki Script and this year we study both real time series and Skam remakes. We also look at storytelling from the angle of the whole team together with top producer Camilla Hammerich.

As chair of the EBU TV fiction expert group, what are the key issues that public service broadcasters (PSB) are facing today?
LF: In earlier years the EBU Fiction group arranged forums that shared branch knowledge and invited productions companies to big pitches. Today there are so many forums with pitching possibilities out there that our group now focuses totally on content, strategy and business issues from a PSB point of view.

Key PBS drama issues have for some time been the distribution switch from TV to online, engaging all ages (especially the young ones), brave commissioning and international deal making. Now that US VOD giants produce local drama in Europe, there is an increased need for PSB companies to talk and team up.

On the other hand, all companies also build their own strategies concerning co-financing (or not) with the giants. Today many European broadcasters are inspired by Nordvision’s co-production model. Last May ZDF, France Télévision and RAI published their drama alliance. New European PSB alliances are under discussion, and so are alliance expansions.

As exec producer of international projects at Yle, how has your role evolved over the last few years, with the boom of European co-productions and co-distribution deals counterbalancing the expansion of Netflix and other global streaming platforms?
LF: There is more work for anyone in the international field now. The number of Yle dramas with an international potential is truly a lot bigger today compared to a few years ago. From being more hands-on in coproduction, my role is a bit more of a satellite function, keeping track of what is changing in the global market, and supporting international projects when needed. Many projects in development will not happen without international financing which means that creative and business sides have to meet at an earlier stage. The Nordic 12 model has also increased the number of Nordvision projects that Yle is involved in, and this brings new interesting questions to solve for all Nordic pubcasters. 

DR, NRK, SVT have a particular quality label attached to their brand. Would you say that Yle has now achieved this as well?
LF: Yle is achieving it just now. Yle’s crime series that travel today, like Bordertown or Deadwind, combine a special Finnish mood with quality and good genre knowledge. A brand needs both, plus a unique factor. Nordic rationality and quality combined with traces of dark Slavic humour, melancholy and laconic understatements might be our mix.

Finland’s position between East and West also give us special stories.  Several unique dramas are developed just now and the growing amount of international investment in our series should enable high-end concepts. Something is definitively happening in the comedy and online sector and Yle has been particularly successful with its web dramas Mental or Dragonslayer 666 which combine a laconic humour with real youth issues.

Yle’s real time drama series Karma introduced at MIPTV and at Copenhagen TV series last week is also the world’s first drama series of its kind. The braveness to test new formats is also part of the Yle brand. 

What internationally-oriented Yle dramas can we expect to see in 2019?
LF: Currently Yle is producing two Finnish-Spanish speaking international series. Invisible Heroes is a political near history series based on a true story about the young Finnish diplomat Tapani Brotherus (Pelle Heikkilä) who secretly from his government saved thousands of lives in Pinochet’s Chile. He’s mirrored by his Swedish colleague Harald Enestam (Mikael Persbrandt) whose rescue effort was backed up by Olof Palme.

Finnish-Spanish crime series The Paradise deals with a row of murders in Little Finland, a Finnish community on Costa del Sol. A lot is of course happening in the Nordics too. For 2019 SVT and Yle will co-produce White Wall, a near future mystery series involving nuclear waste in Lapland.