Writer Kenneth Karlstad wins the 2023 Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize for Kids in Crime

For the seventh consecutive year, the award for outstanding writing of a Nordic drama series was handed out at TV Drama Vision. The NOK 200 000 (approx € 20 000) award, funded by Nordisk Film & TV Fond was awarded to the main writer(s) of the series.

Kenneth Karlstad is a Norwegian director and screenwriter for fiction, music videos and commercials. His debut short film The Hunger earned him a Young Director Award at Cannes 2019 and the Film Critics Award at The Norwegian Short Film Festival. He’s also won several awards for his work on music videos. Kids in Crime is his long format debut.

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Jury statement:
"The jury is thankful for the possibility to watch and read series from across the Nordic countries. We have based our evaluation on three main criteria: craft, relevance, and originality. The winner has it all. It's based on a true universe from a certain time. The authenticity, honesty, brutality, and friendship drive the story and engage the audience. Accuracy, details, music, it's all in the script! The writer really owns the story."

This years’ jury consisted of Amanda Collin, Actor, Denmark; Nebojša Taraba, producer, Croatia; Wanda Bendjelloul, journalist and critic, Sweden; Leif Holst Jensen, producer and Dean of faculty, TV and Games, Innland University of Applied Sciences, Norway.

Details of the Production:

Norway, 8x22’
Co-writer: Audun Fagervold Hansen
Commissioner: TV2 Norge
Produced by: Einar Film Drama
Producers: Brede Hovland, Teodor Sven Bø & Pål Kruke Kristiansen
Director: Kenneth Karlstad
Sales: Federation Studios
Premiere: November 25, 2022

Kids in Crime is an unusual coming-of-age series, set in the year 2001.

The series is about the three teens, Tommy, Pål and Monica, who get into trouble after incurring a large debt to the local drug lord Freddy Hell. In the midst of this chaos, they move into a house, to party and use as much drugs as possible. But all parties come to an end, and this particular end could be bloody.

Earlier winners of the coveted Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize were Iceland’s Gísli Örn Gardarsson, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson and Mikael Torfason for the crime series Blackport (2022), Denmark’s Maja Jul Larsen for the drama Cry Wolf (2021) Norway’s Sara Johnsen for the drama 22 July (2020), Finland’s Merja Aakko and Mika Ronkainen for the crime series All the Sins (2019), Denmark’s Adam Price for the drama Ride Upon the Storm (2018), and Norway’s Mette. M. Bølstad and Stephen Uhlander for the political drama Nobel (2017).