Exclusive: Ragnarok helmer Mikkel B. Sandemose has joined the creative team of the ambitious Norwegian TV show currently shooting.

Norway’s leading production house Maipo Film which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, has one of its busiest production schedules ever, despite the flailing Covid-19 pandemic.

Managing director Synnøve Hørsdal says a handful of projects initially due to start rolling in May, are now lensing across Norway.

First up is the second season of the handsomely-crafted period drama State of Happiness (Lykkeland) written again by Mette M. Bølstad, from a concept by Siw Rajendram Eliassen, itself based on an idea by Hørsdal.

The original season was both a critical and commercial success for Maipo Film, watched by almost 900,000 average viewers on NRK1 and NRKTV, and it was sold by DR Sales to the BBC.

The new season picks up the story of Norway’s oil industry in 1977 - five years after the national oil company Statoil was founded-and ends in 1980. “While the opening season centred on the burgeoning years of the oil industry, this season tackles the transforming years where business is picking up and growing out of control, with accidents happening and people making mistakes,” explains Hørsdal.

Season 2 features in particular two major accidents: in April 22, 1977, when an uncontrolled blowout occurred on the Bravo platform in the Norwegian Ekofisk field, and on March 27, 1980, when the Alexander L. Kielland platform capsized in the North Sea, killing 123 people. Hørsdal says director Mikkel B. Sandemose (behind the films Cold Prey 3, Ragnarok, The Ash Lad fantasy adventure franchise) will handle most of the action scenes, VFX and the stunt-based shoot, working alongside concept director Petter Næss and episodic director Pål Jackman.

Reprising their roles as the young protagonists whose lives are impacted by the oil boom are Anne Regine Ellingsæter as Anna Hellevik, Bart Edwards as Jonathan Kay, Malene Wadel as Toril Torstensen, while newcomer Paal Herman Ims (Oslo Zoo) is the new face for Christian Nyman. Also new is rising Swedish acting talent Sara Shirpey (Top Dog, Alex) who plays an Iranian working in the oil industry.

Due to a more complex technical shoot, season 2 has a larger budget of around NOK 120 million (€10.7m) against NOK 96 million for season 1.

The eight-part series produced by Hørsdal and Ales Ree for NRK is co-produced by Belgium’s Lunanime Group, in association with DR, SVT, RÚV, Yle as part of Nordic 12, support from the Norwegian Film Institute among others.

Filming started September 29 in Stavanger and continues in Bergen until November when the cast & crew will move to Belgium for underwater shoots. Delivery is scheduled for late 2021.

Next TV series up is the YA short format I Don’t Live Here (Jeg bor ikke her) produced for TV2 Norway’s streaming service TV2 Sumo. The 10x12’ series is directed and co-written by newcomer Liv Mari Mortensen.

The central character Klara (20) is going through a crisis after a failed relationship and crashes into a flat, shared by her friends.

On the feature film side, Maipo Film has two films in production. 

Clue directed by Thale Persen (Thin Ice) is based on the Jørn Lier Holst’s crime books for kids aged 9-12, adapted for the screen by Aleksander Kirkwood Brown, who worked on Maipo’s success fantasy kids franchise The Ash Lad: in the Hall of the Mountain and The Ash Lad In Search of the Golden Castle.

A group of kids who live in a boarding house, try to discover who is behind the killing of a man, found on a beach nearby. Next to the children cast including Julia Mælumshagen Nymoen, Kenza Olympia Iteka and Felix Sollie, are seasoned actors Kyrre Haugen Sydness (The Third Eye, Beforeigners), Bjørn Floberg (Out Stealing Horses) and Lisa Loven Kongsli (Force Majeure). The film backed by Nordisk Film & TV Fond will be released by Nordisk Film in the fall 2021.

Thomas in the Multiverse (Thomas i multiverset) is directed by rising talent Jakob Rørvik who developed the project at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab 2018. In it, quantum physicist Thomas believes he is about to crack the code of the universe, but he can’t seem to untangle the mysteries of his own life, even as the people he loves most – his young son, ex- wife, and mother – all try to bring him back to earth. In the starring roles are Arthur Berning (Next Summer, The Wave), Filip Mathias Eide (Harajuku) and Silje Storstein (Witch Hunt, Young & Promising). The film is backed by the Norwegian Film Institute and TV2 Norway. Filming is underway in Oslo.

Maipo Film has also a large slate of film, TV and animation projects in development, supervised by a strong team of seven in-house producers, including Christian Fredrik Martin who recently joined the company. “We’ve worked 20 years in the business, have a good network of existing partners, and we’re constantly looking for new people to work with, both in Norway and internationally,” says Hørsdal. “We’re now working almost 50/50 across film and TV, low budget and high-end international co-productions and want to transfer our know-how in family animated films to the TV sector. There are more opportunities than ever out there!” she points out.