Crime TV dramas based on real events such as When They See Us, Unbelievable, The People v OJ Simpson have proven great binge material on Netflix and true crime docu-series are hot streaming content across all platforms.  

After Monster/Discovery Networks Norway’s sensational Norwegian docu series Estonia: The Find That Changes Everything by Henrik Evertsson, which sent shockwaves in the Nordics in September, as it reveals new evidence behind the sinking of the MS Estonia in 1994, the story of the maritime disaster is now being fictionised for NENT Group’s Viaplay streaming service.

The series Estonia: The Last Wave (Estonia-den sista vågen) will be directed and created by top Swedish/French director Charlotte Brändström (The Witcher, The Man in The High Castle, Conspiracy of Silence), who shares the writing credit with Paolo Vacirca (The Hypnotist).  The show is produced by Scandinavian Content Group, in association with the UK’s ITV Studios.

In 1994, 852 people from 17 countries lost their lives when the MS Estonia ferry, en route from Tallinn to Stockholm, sank in the Finnish waters, making it one of Europe’s worse shipping disasters. Three years later, investigators from a joint Committee from Estonia, Sweden and Finland, concluded the disaster was caused by the failing locks of a bow visor, which allowed water to rapidly flood the car deck.

But in his documentary series Estonia: The Find That Changes Everything, investigative journalist Henrik Evertsson revealed to the world a never before documented four-metre hole in the ferry’s hull, suggesting that the sinking might not be linked to a technical malfunction, but to a collision, prompting authorities to re-examine the case.

Taking into account these new elements, the fiction series Estonia-The Last Wave will ask what politicians and the military knew about the tragedy, and whether it was really an accident.

“The Estonia disaster will never be forgotten, and the latest evidence has renewed calls for a full and independent enquiry,” commented Filippa Wallestam, NENT Group Chief Content Officer, saying about Viaplay’s forthcoming series: “Our aim with this dramatisation is to pose some urgent questions, while painting a sensitive and moving portrait of one of the Baltic Sea’s darkest nights.”

Acknowledging the "specific challenge of making a drama based on real events", Brandström added: ”The aim is not to dramatise what we already know, but to show what we otherwise would never see. What really happened to the MS Estonia and why?”

Scandinavian Content Group’s CEO Hans Engholm said his company has already initiated the research phase to get “as close to the course of events as possible”. “We have interviewed survivors and other key people from several countries, and they have told their stories about what happened before, during and after the disaster on September 28, 1994,” he said.

No date has yet been set for Estonia-The Last Wave’s premiere on Viaplay.

In the meantime, Henrik Evertsson and Linus Andersson - another crew member who worked on Estonia: The Find That Changes Everything - are being prosecuted by the Swedish authorities for violating the burial site of the MS Estonia, while investigating the causes of the disaster. They face up to two years’ imprisonment.

The trial in Gothenburg will begin late January, 2021.

Evertsson won last month Sweden’s prestigious journalistic prize “Stora Journalistpriset (‘Big Journalistic Prize’) in the category ‘Revelation of the Year’. In their motivation, the jury said: “He [Evertsson] defied the diving ban and found the hole that forced three governments to go to the bottom of the Estonia’s mystery.”

The Norwegian docu-series in five episodes produced by Monster, premiered on Discovery Network’s streamer Dplay on September 28 and on Sweden’s Kanal 5 October 23.