Nordic Film Music Days 2025: Collaborating around music rights more crucial than ever

Since 2010, Nordic composers have joined forces to put focus on Nordic Film Music with the HARPA Nordic Film Composers Award, supported by Nordische Botschaften and Nordisk Film & TV Fond, among others. The event spotlights Nordic composers, celebrates their music.

It is also a platform for knowledge-sharing, Nordic network and international collaboration. The composers’ organisations from the five Nordic countries host the event.

The winner of the HARPA Nordic Film Composers Award 2025 is the team of Kåre Christoffer Vestrheim, Kristoffer Lo, Eivind Helgerød and Andréa Louise Horstad, for their score of Power Play (Makta) produced by Motlys for NRK. The drama series won the Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize in 2024.

Horstad was present in Berlin to collect the prize on behalf of the four composers in the Norwegian winning team. She told Nordisk Film & TV Fond:

“We are very honoured, and getting this award is celebrating collaboration between composers as well. I’m very lucky to be part of the project with four composers. I believe it’s also a celebration of imperfection in a way. We kind of humanise the whole composing phase, because we’re all humans, and it’s rough, it’s imperfect and it’s weird. Last year’s winners talked about this as well. Maybe that’s quite a new thing in the film industry.“

When asked what especially inspired Kåre Christoffer Vestrheim, the composer who was in charge of putting together the composing team, he said: “The process itself was probably what was most inspiring about this composing work. I gathered the Power Play composer team, and we made a lot of the music together - very improvised! It was a fun, intense and educational period, and the result is something completely different with such a collaboration from when you work alone”.

The international jury, led by HARPA award winner 2024, Eðvarð Egilsson (IS), consists of Michael P. Aust (DE), festival director of Soundtrack Cologne; Hanna-Greth Peetson (EST), Music Meets Film & Industry@Tallinn; Sydney Levine (US), international film consultant; Byun Seung Min (KOR), founder and producer at Climax Studio; Erica Procunier (CA), composer, professor, and member of SAG Canada; and Peter Domsch (DE), sales manager at European Film Market.

The jury’s statement: “The music for Power Play seamlessly complements the series' handheld and rough style, integrating ambient sounds in a way that merges with the sound design. It adds tension and drive, which is essential for a political thriller with such high stakes, and enhances the energy that keeps viewers captivated and curious. The music plays on the characters' complex dilemmas, often with humour and a satirical twist, thus functioning as a storyteller in itself, parallel to the dialogue. From the first notes, Power Play’s composers capture your attention and drive you to watch the series to the end.”

As always, the competition was fierce:

The Danish documentary The Son and the Moon (Min arv bor i dig), directed by Roja Pakari and Emilie Adelina Monies, with Christian Balvig’s score growing from the film's inner soul, expanding the film's internal narrative.

The Finnish drama Sebastian, directed by Mikko Mäkelä, in which Ilari Heinilä's composition enhances the narrative, true to the film’s tone and vision.

The Icelandic drama Touch (Snerting), directed by Baltasar Kormákur, in which Högni Egilsson's score serves as a seamless addition to the storytelling.

And finally the Swedish animation Who are you, Mamma Moo? (Vem är du, Mamma Mu?) by Christian Ryltenius, in which composer Henrik Lörstad manages to highlight both the playful and the serious aspects of the film's message.

The 2025 edition of the Film Music Days had a record of 60+ composers attending. "In the world of today, it is more important than ever that the Nordic countries stand together in the global media landscape, and fortunately we feel this with a record high attendance this year," says the Danish Film Composer Halfdan E. Nielsen from the Danish Film Composers Association.

When it comes to knowledge-sharing, the nuts and bolts of the business were explored in a series of masterclasses, panels, and a speed meeting event hosted with the European Film Market (EFM).

The International Film Consultant Sydney Levine has worked in close collaboration with EFM to organise the speed meetings with producers from all over Europe and abroad. "There has been an overwhelming interest from the producers to meet with Nordic composers. We actually had more meeting requests than there were slots in the schedule. Nordic film music is highly respected," she said when NFTVF met her at the event.

Composing for films is often a collaborative process, and there are well established traditions in the Nordic countries regarding Intellectual Property rights. Facing the global streaming world, Nordic composers are confronted with new legal regimes and dealmaking traditions, making the agreement structure complicated. This was the focus of one of the panels.

The Swedish editor Sofia Lindgren gave a masterclass sharing her vast experience in collaborating with composers on TV series, feature films, and documentaries. "When the global streamers hit the Nordics, the workflow became a more collaborative process, with supervisors, agents and more specific notes from the commissioner," she reflects, and continues: "It can often be very inspiring and time-saving to work with supervisors, but I still need to have the mobile number of the composer," she noted with a barely hidden smile. The masterclass ended in a lively discussion in the crowded auditorium, where many practical and even legal details of the do’s and don’ts of the collaborative processes were discussed.