The leading Scandi production company Yellow Bird part of Banijay Group, is expanding into English language drama.

Berna Levin, Yellow Bird’s current Chief Creative Officer who has been with the company since 2007 will move to London to oversee Yellow Bird Productions UK. The new entity will be part of Banijay Studios International which coordinates all of the global content provider’s scripted activities.

Four questions to Berna Levin:

Yellow Bird ‘s Millennium trilogy was perhaps the starting point for the Nordic noir wave. Is the opening of a London office a new step in your international ambitions?
Berna Levin: Indeed we are opening a London office in Covent Garden and we are in the process of hiring a development person who will work there with me. When we launched the Millennium films, and Wallander series that became hugely popular internationally, we were thrilled but also humbled. We thought the Nordic noir wave wouldn’t last. Fifteen years later, it’s still very much in demand.

Also, at Yellow Bird, because of our ambitions, we’ve always done co-productions. Even a decade ago, we were always looking for partners in the rest of Europe and we’ve worked with great partners in Germany, in France, and obviously in the UK where Wallander, Headhunters were big hits.

More recently our Norwegian show Occupied had enjoyed a successful run on Sky Arts. For years we’ve been working with talents, broadcasters in Europe and in the UK and we feel this is just a natural extension to our activities. The idea is really to be a bridge between Yellow Bird Scandinavia and Yellow Bird UK.

There is a real momentum with SF Studios that just opened a London office and many writers/directors splitting their time between Scandinavia and the UK…
BL: It’s a very dynamic relationship. I think we’re very similar in our tastes and there is a real understanding of a cultural common ground. With the UK Wallander, we realised that UK writers have a great grasp of Scandinavian flavour. They also have the outsider’s perspective so when you go blind, they bring their energy and show what’s familiar to us in a new way. Scandinavian talents are also brilliant at speaking and writing in English and it’s a great advantage for me to be able to tap into British talent, and hopefully bring them to Scandinavia and vice versa.

What will be the share of non-English and English-language projects in Yellow Bird’s line up?
BL: Yellow Bird Scandinavia will keep doing drama in the local language and in parallel, Yellow Bird UK will do more programming earmarked towards the English-speaking audience. We will have original content coming from the UK as we want to service the UK market, but with a Scandinavian edge and flavour, be it through authentic IPs, or a writer, director or an actor. We already have a couple of projects in English-language in development such as Devil’s Sanctuary, adapted from Swedish author Marie Hermanson’s novel Himmelsdalen, adapted by UK writer Charlie Fletcher. It is produced by Yellow Bird in Stockholm. We also have English projects (films and TV dramas) in development in the US, so it’s been in Yellow Bird’s DNA the whole time.

What other TV shows and films are currently in production and in development at Yellow Bird?
BL: We have the Swedish psychological drama series Cold Cuts that started production on Monday, based on an idea by Leif GW Persson, with Robert Gustafsson in the main role. Discovery Sweden and Viaplay are on board which is fantastic. I believe we will see more and more of these new alliances in the future. Audiences want real quality and high-end drama, but there is not a broadcaster anywhere anymore who can write a cheque on its own. We simply have to find co-producers and different ways of financing projects.

Viaplay was also a major partner in our Norwegian show Occupied 2 that just premiered end of September [TV2 Norway has second window rights], and the streaming service is also heavily involved in our upcoming show Hidden set to start shooting the second week of January 2018. Germany’s Tele München Group is on board as well and we will announce the cast very soon.

We are also most probably doing a season 2 of the Swedish crime show Rebecka Martinsson that was very successful on TV4 [1.17 million viewers for the premiere in April]. Then we are producing with Columbia and Sony in the US the new Millennium film The Girl in the Spider’s Web starring Claire Foy. We’re so thrilled to have her in the role of Lisbeth Salander. Principal photography is set to start early January.