The move indicates a further step in the partners’ tight collaboration, initiated in 2018 when the TF1-own French group acquired a 33% stake in the Danish company.

Birgitte Hald, co-founder of Nimbus Film with Bo Erhhardt told nordicfilmandtvnews.com: “We’re so pleased with our partnership with Newen. They’ve been extremely supportive, giving us access to their distribution connections and family network of companies. Our new agreement gives them the right to have a first look regarding international distribution of our TV series and films, and in return they invest in the development of the projects,” she said.

Once deeply rooted in arthouse cinema (Festen, Mifune among others), Nimbus Film has shifted its business model to adapt to the market. “Next to the making of one arthouse film a year, to keep our profile strong and attract new talents, we will produce 1-2 commercial films; the rest will be TV dramas, across all genres and formats,” says Hald.

So far this year, the company has delivered the Icelandic film Echo by Rúnar Rúnarsson (2020 Nordic Council Film Prize nominee), the Danish period films The Good Traitor by Christina Rosendahl (nearly 200,000 admissions in Denmark) and Erna at War by Henrik Ruben Genz (154,692 admissions).

Upcoming productions are the following:

• Untitled feature film by Annette K. Olesen (Borgen, In Your Hands), based on a script by Maren-Louise Käehne (Queen of Hearts). The top Danish cast comprises Jakob Cedergren (The Guilty), Trine Dyrholm (Queen of Hearts), Morten Hee Andersen (Ride Upon the Storm), Sofie Juul Blikenberg (The Butterfly Swings), Emil Dorph (Erna at War) and Ellaha Lack (The Rain). The film produced by Jonas Frederiksen is currently in post-production. “It is a multi-plot story developed by Annette K. and Maren Louise, in close collaboration with five literary authors, and Maren-Louise has written a fantastic script,” noted Hald.
• Sci-fi comedy My Robot Brother by Frederik Nørgaard (Kidnapping), based on a children’s book by Morten Dürr. Nørgaard and stand-up comedian/writer Jacob Tingleff (Hand in Hand) serve as co-writers. Set in a near future, where everyone has robot assistants, we follow Alberte (12) who receives the newest model on the market- Konrad, who looks completely human. The two seem to build a genuine connection, but is it even possible to befriend a robot? The film produced by Jasmine Hermann Naghizadeh is set to start filming early 2021. Scanbox has Nordic rights.
• YA TV series What About Monica commissioned by Nent Group’s Viaplay. The 8x28’ series is written by Julie Budtz Sørensen (episodic writer on The Rain) from her own podcast, directed by first-timer Nils Holst Jensen. The lives of a group of teenagers change forever when a sexual crime takes place amongst them. Louise (16) is trying to find out who raped her best friend Monica. Slowly she is forced to question who she is and her own beliefs. The series produced by Live Hide will start filming in January 2021. Projects in development include:
• TV dramedy Helga Gets a Life (8x22’), currently in negotiations with a broadcaster. The young-adult TV show produced by Jasmine Hermann Naghizadeh, is created by rising talent Emma le Marc (Vitello) who took part in the Series Mania-UGC Writing Campus with the project. The series focuses on Helga and her mission to end her own life, which is being reinforced when moving from Copenhagen to a smaller suburb. It’s just not that easy to find an appealing way to commit suicide, so when Helga learns that Ingrid, the school’s drug dealer, has access to the perfect (but rare) suicide pills ‘The Golden Apples’, she asks for Ingrid’s help.

Other upcoming premium TV shows include the period drama King of the Airport, currently in development for TV2, the crime series Winterland, and a near-sci-fi action-drama.

Feature film projects include Henrik Ruben-Genz’s Stand by Me, based on a script by Bo Hr. Hansen, the next films directed by Christina Rosendahl, Ulrich Thomsen and an animation film by Philip Einstein Lipski (The Giant Pear).