Trine Dyrholm, Lena Olin and more pick up their Freyas in Helsinki as its founders encourage Nordic industry to “be a little bit bolder to get more attention”

The Freyas – Nordic Film & TV Awards made its debut in Helsinki.

Named after the Norse goddess of love, magic and war.

“And that’s what our industry is all about: war,” joked actor Pekka Strang, who moderated the event. “No – the pursuit of love and beauty. But to create that film magic, we often have to forge war.”

During its inaugural ceremony, Lena Olin picked up the Honorary Goddess Award, going to “an accomplished woman in the Nordic audiovisual industry”. Lasse Hallström was given the Honorary Falcon Award, given to a professional in the Nordic audiovisual industry who has bridged the Nordics with the global industry. He was greeted with a standing ovation.

Hallström thanked Olin, who has been “flying with him side by side for so many years”.

“This is supposed to be an award for achievements, but without her, these achievements of mine would have been very few.”

Trine Dyrholm won the Outstanding Nordic Actor in a Series award for her work in The Danish Woman (Danska konan), which was also named Outstanding Nordic Series.

“This is so much fun. I already had the full Finnish experience with a morning swim and a sauna, and now I’m here with you – my inspiring Nordic colleagues.”

Ólafur Darri Ólafsson was recognised as Outstanding Nordic Actor in a Series for Reykjavik Fusion. Fares Fares picked up the Outstanding Nordic Actor in a Film award for Adult Supervision (Arkipelag).

“I hope it’s going to become the biggest thing in the Nordics,” he told the audience.

Ebba Katrín Finnsdóttir was given The Valkyrie Award - Nordic IP award, Finland’s very own Laura Birn won the Outstanding Nordic Actor & Local Hero award, and Thea Sofie Loch Næss got The Icebreaker Award for a young Nordic talent with breakthrough performances in international content.

Finally, The Secret Reading Club of Kabul was spotlighted as Nordic Impact Documentary, and Nightborn (Yön lapsi) as Outstanding Nordic Film.

The Freyas – conceived as a travelling Nordic celebration of film and TV – will be hosted in different Nordic capitals, with Copenhagen set to take over next year.

“With our relatively small populations, the five Nordics are actually consistently punching above their weight. We wanted to make this even more visible by thinking of the Nordics as one territory and not five small countries,” said Roosa Toivonen, Head of Industry and Talent.

“We are countries with some of the best quality of life ratings in the world, and tell very diverse stories, also partly due to the audiovisual industry still being quite heavily subsidised – which we are grateful for,” she added.

“We should be proud of our Nordic culture, heritage and our way of working, which is extremely trust-based. But still, we don’t have many pan-Nordic stars or directors that draw people to the cinemas. We could have more, and we could still have a tighter ecosystem for financing and distribution as well.”

The Freyas – and its founders – are hoping that the event will make an impact also further abroad.

“We need to unite the Nordics not only on the official and government levels, but also the individual level, the grass root level, with people who know what working in film and TV industries really is, and create a stronger ecosystem in United States and hopefully also around the world,” said Kirpi Uimonen.

“We are hopefully creating a new tradition highlighting our industry people and creating more awareness of our region and people.”

Uimonen said that while the Nordics are “greatly appreciated”, there’s more to be done.

“Maybe we can be even a little bit bolder to get more attention? When we compete with other films and TV series from bigger territories, we don’t usually have the same budget. We are relying more on our networks to create visibility. That network could be stronger, and hopefully, through this, we could find more companies which would invest in our talented audiovisual storytellers.”

Tina Jøhnk Christensen added:

“As someone who has been based in Los Angeles for 25 years, I see how incredibly talented Nordic filmmakers are – and how we ought to celebrate this even more. The goal is to bring attention to the extraordinary talents, and create a platform for international exposure.”

While other countries are paying attention, there’s more that could be done.

“We do see this in the US, but we need to be better at promoting ourselves. Americans are experts at this. They are not afraid of it, while there’s a tendency to be humbler in the Nordic countries.”

The idea is to create more international awareness, she said, as well as “create yet another platform where we bring Nordic talent together for networking possibilities”.

Uimoinen noted: “Hopefully, through The Freyas we can build a strong network and continue uniting our industry people and opening more routes and global possibilities. The key is to do this together.”

“The Nordic market might be small, but it was never afraid to dream big,” said Strang.