Borgen/The Chestnut Man creators plot Norwegian outpost

After the recent launch of her Swedish outpost headed by Maria Dahlin (see our story CLICK HERE), the seasoned Danish producer and entrepreneur said she will soon open a Norwegian production office, and is about to hire key personnel in Norway. “We have already produced the Netflix series Ragnarok in Norway, and therefore know how to produce Norwegian content, but we are still investigating the best way to setup a business there,” Foldager Sørensen told nordicfilmandtvnews.com. The move is fully-backed by Studiocanal, co-owners of SAM Productions, together with Foldager Sørensen, and creators/writers Adam Price and Søren Sveistrup.

The pan-Nordic expansion of Sam Productions and Foldager Sørensen’s film label Meta Film, was on the cards for a while, according to the CEO, but it was accelerated by the streaming dispute over rights remuneration erupted earlier this year with the union umbrella Create Denmark and the Danish Producers Association - see our separate story: CLICK HERE.

Today, although the situation is unblocked with TV2 Denmark, and Viaplay has extended a temporary agreement with the Danish union reps, productions are still stalled both with Viaplay and Netflix, says Foldager Sørensen, who used to create 4-5 Danish originals a year for the major streamers and hasn’t had a new order since September 2021. “We’re basically back in Denmark to where we were before the streamers,” laments the senior producer.

The executive producer of Borgen-Power & Glory said she has coped in this challenging period thanks to a good volume of Danish projects greenlit in 2021 that were wrapped in 2022, such as Viaplay’s crime comedy Elvira, which premiered November 13. But she expects her company’s turnover for 2022 to be “much lower than in 2021”, and outlooks for 2023 in Denmark “still look scary” she said, hence the focus away from her native country, and into Sweden and Norway.

Foldager Sørensen said her team has been busy this year developing new Swedish and Norwegian scripted content, and turning existing Danish projects into Swedish or Norwegian proposals, such as Netflix’s recently announced Swedish feature project by Lisa Aschan. “We’ve kept the Danish writer Marie Østerbye [Deliver Us, Splitting Up Together] but we’ve changed everything else,” said Foldager Sørensen, who serves as executive producer alongside Osterbye and Maria Dahlin. The light-hearted comedy which started filming in Stockholm last month, stars Charlotta Björck, Sanna Sundqvist, Ia Langhammer and Ville Virtanen among others.

Foldager Sørensen said she is looking forward to working both within the traditional public funding model, and with global streamers in Sweden and Norway. “We are looking into producing quality dramas and films with strong Nordic creative voices,” she said.

Genre-wise, the Danish executive said SAM Productions will continue to deliver premium crime and dramas, while expanding into comedy, such as Viaplay’s Elvira or DR’s The Orchestra, which picked up four awards including Best Comedy at the recent Aarhus Series Awards. A second season has been commissioned by the Danish pubcaster.

Foldager Sørensen said she also has English language projects in development, while the high-profile writers/creators Adam Price (Borgen, Ride Upon the Storm) and Søren Sveistrup (The Chestnut Man) are working on new projects.

“I’m confident about the future. Content is king, we can rely on our in-house ‘kings’ [Price and Sveistrup], and have to work cleverly on the distribution side,” concludes Foldager Sørensen.