The six-part drama currently filming in Finland, is produced by Funfar in co-production with Fireframe and support from Business Finland.

The €10m Finnish sports drama series set in the motorcycle racing world in the 1970s, stars rising talent Tom Rejström (Yellow Sulphur Sky) as Finnish motorcycle legend Jarno Saarinen, and Sanna Koivisto (The Knocking, Stop Nyqvist) as Saarinen’s 19-year-old girlfriend Soili.

The adrenaline-filled drama was pitched at Content London on Wednesday among ‘Hot Properties’ by producer Timo Vierimaa, and seasoned screenwriter Sami Keski-Vähälä, regular writing partner to Mika Kaurismäki. The partners are part of Helsinki-based Funfar, co-owned by actor/writer Ville Myllyrinne.

Speaking to nordicfilmandtvnews.com in London, Vierimaa and Keski-Vähälä said they have been working since 2015 on Ride Out, initially meant as a feature film. “We soon realised that the material would be better suited for a long-running series,” said the co-writer of Kaurismäki’s Gracious Night and The House of Branching Love.

The series follows amateur underdog Jarno, as he challenges an unbeatable champion on the international MOTO GP motorbike racing circuit, during its golden years in the 1970s. Supported by his girlfriend Soili, and camping out at each race to cut costs, Jarno rides to free himself from his family’s struggling funeral home. But to succeed, he must risk his life at every race, in a harsh competition with his fellow riders and brothers in arms on the track.

“At the time, the motorcycle sport was led by amateurs who would travel the world with their families, sleeping in tents, making their own meals - they were a bit like a travelling circus”, points out Vierimaa.

In his screenplay, Keski-Vähälä meticulously recreated the atmosphere of the time, through thorough research, speaking as well to the real Soili Karmen and widow to the great Jarno Saarinen, the only Finn to have won a motorcycle road racing world championship, but who sadly lost his life at Monza’s Grand Prix in 1973. But the series remains a fiction work with changes to real places and characters.

Jarmo Lampela, Head of Drama at Yle, himself a biker-fan, is thrilled to have backed the project from an early development stage. “I’m a kind of Sunday biker-driver, but of course, for anyone over 40 and interested in motorcycling, Jarno Saarinen was a true legend!”

For Lampela, the key for the series was to find the essence of the ‘big’ story behind the personal stories'. “It took half a year for Sami [Keski-Vähälä] to find the angle, which is how the amateur sport, gradually turned into a huge international business. The same happened with basketball and other sports, with manufacturers building teams and sportsmen becoming big stars on a pay roll. It was a fascinating era in the sports business,” Lampela observes.

The Head of Drama at the Finnish public service broadcaster, says having Swedish director Simon Kaijser on board was a match made in heaven”. “When the Funfar team approached him, Simon told them he is totally into motorcycle racing and rides on the tracks every year, so he perfectly knows what the story is about.”
Kaijser has directed over 20 films and series, including Don't Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves, Before We Die and The Unlikely Murderer.

Filming of Ride Out is well under way. The first period of shooting in and around Imatra - home to the motorcycle Grand Prix of Finland from 1964 to 1982 - has ended and the second block will start in the spring 2023, around the Mediterranean and Europe.

The premiere on Yle is set for late 2023-early 2024.