Cinenord sells majority share to Beta Film, announces Bergman Biopic

Set up in 2004, Cinenord is headed by producer Silje Hopland Eik, and her partner, creative director Alexander Eik. The company has gradually widened its family-centric film slate to high-end TV drama, and initiated its collaboration with Beta Film when the distributor boarded the Sofia Helin/ Kyle MacLachlan series Atlantic Crossing at development stage in 2016.

Through its majority share in Cinenord announced this week, Beta Film has added Norway to its existing roster of Nordic production brands under its Beta Nordic Studios umbrella, with Iceland’s Sagafilm, Finland’s Fisher King and Sweden’s Dramacorp.

The deal also allows Cinenord to tap into the German integrated group’s large international distribution network and to establish closer ties with European producers.

Cinenord’s flagship period drama Atlantic Crossing produced for NRK, with support from Nordisk Film & TV Fond, has achieved strong ratings throughout Scandinavia, even doubling rating share of some channels. The series also launched on Germany’s Telekom’s Magenta TV and will next roll out in the US on PBS Masterpiece and on Italy’s pubcaster RAI.

Cinenord’s second season of the crime show Wisting will premiere on Nent Group’s Viaplay this spring.

Meanwhile Alexander Eik is currently preparing the TV biopic The Director, inspired by the life of Sweden’s legendary director Ingmar Bergman.

The show is described as “a fresh and playful fictional take on the life of legendary director Ingmar Bergman”. “With his complex and unique personality as well as his exceptionally rich and exciting life, Bergman’s biography has all the dazzling and dramatic ingredients required to engage and amuse a wide international audience, said the press notes.

Two questions to Alexander Eik about THE DIRECTOR and Ingmar Bergman

Can you explain how you intend to turn Ingmar Bergman’s often tormented, solemn universe and complex relationship with women, into an engaging and amusing biopic?
AE: I know that for many people, as you suggest, Bergman is associated with his darker and more solemn works, such as The Silence, Through a Glass Darkly, and Persona. But if you look at his work as a whole, you’ll find that he also had a much brighter side to his personality. Not only did he direct several comedies, but I find a certain playfulness and irony in almost all of his works, including his most sombre films. Just look at The Seventh Seal. I think it has lots of delightful tongue-in-cheek moments.

Those who knew Bergman often tell of a generous man with a vivid sense of humour, who treated his actors respectfully. Woody Allen once described him as "a regular guy who liked to talk about box office sales and women". At the same time, Bergman publicly catered to his mystical image as "The Demon Director."

Indeed Ingmar Bergman's private life seemed chaotic and dramatic: a brutal childhood with a hard-hearted father and a mother who rejected him, by his own accounts. Nine longer relationships, resulting in five marriages and nine children. There is enough drama here for many lives – not least, a serialised TV drama spanning two, three seasons…maybe more!

How do you feel about bringing to the screens such an iconic filmmaker?
AE: What really intrigues me as a writer and director, and makes me want to explore Ingmar Bergman’s life through storytelling, is the central question: What was the source of his creativity and passion and his enormous appetite for life?

It is not my intention to make a glorified tribute to ‘The Genius’. I intend to create a dramatic, exciting and modern drama about a complex and unique person who had a rich and exciting life, and hopefully make that story feel fresh and playful to a contemporary audience.

The story of Bergman's life is also a story about Sweden, a story about the evolution of film and theatre history. Creativity, success, failure, fame, romance, power, envy, friendship, fighting, infidelity – there was a lot of infidelity – court cases, police arrests, charges of tax evasion, exile, illness, psychosis, attempted suicide: I believe The Director has all the dazzling ingredients needed to reach and intrigue a wide international audience.”