Annual Report 2025

Administration

CEO: Liselott Forsman
Senior Advisor Legal & Strategy: Lise Løwholm
Senior Advisor Fiction: Torleif Hauge
Advisor Documentary: Ove Rishøj Jensen (from November)
Senior Advisor Documentary: Karolina Lidin (to November)
IT Officer & Project Manager: Mathias Kallum Ferre
Accounting & Administrative Officer: Phuong Hoang Nguyen
Intern: Lina Nystrand (to September), Moa Aulanko (from September)

The effects of a theme year do not end when the year ends. During our 2023 theme year Nordic Green, we summoned all fields within the Nordic industry to start an ecological collaboration after which we founded The Nordic Green Action Group to reach concrete goals. In September 2025 the Nordic Ecological Standard (NES) for sustainable film and TV production was launched by NFTVF and the Nordic film institutes with 34 Nordic organisations/companies already joining in. This knowingly first border crossing standard in the world enables effective, sustainable co-producing.

1^st of January was the start of Nordisk Film & TV Fond’s new 5-year contract signed by the Nordic Council of Ministers and sixteen other fund partners for the years 2025-2029. NFTVF’s mission stayed the same but our team of 6 employees, covering 5,5 man-labour years, saw some changes in when Ove Rishøj Jensen succeeded Karolina Lidin as Documentary Advisor in December. NFTVF’s continued collaboration with The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland granted journalist Moa Aulanko a year-long internship at our office in Oslo from September 2025.

All NFTVF partners participated actively in our strategic meetings under the devise “Nordic players are not each other’s main competitors, but collaborating partners in a tough market dominated by global players”. During our Commissioners Meeting, four think thanks analysed current challenges and shared solutions within the areas of feature film, documentary, drama series and children’s content, while our management level day, the Family Meeting, focused on future industry strategies. Conclusions reached at the commissioners’ meeting were discussed at the management meeting and some think tank groups continued to meet along the year, thus strengthening the pan-Nordic efforts even further.

In today’s tough economic climate commissioning might start playing safe. To keep our Nordic industry in the frontier, we must dare to enter undiscovered areas. As an encouragement to brave collaborations between commissioners and producers, NFTVF introduced a new Nordic honorary mention called the Creative Courage Award in late January 2025 in collaboration with TV Drama Vision in Gothenburg. The very first award went to Norwegian producers Synnøve Hørsdal and Petter Onstad Lokke (Maipo) and commissioners Marianne Furevold-Boland and Alec Thom (NRK) for enabling the Norwegian daring and inventive youth series Dates in Real Life.

The Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize was also delivered during TV Drama Vision, but in a new form. Rules were updated to make all Nordic drama series from the previous year eligible. The name of the award was changed to Nordic Script Award – presented by Nordisk Film & TV Fond to stress its status of pan-Nordic mastery. Swedish scriptwriter Pelle Rådström received the award of NOK 250.000 for his mini-series Pressure Point (Smärtpunkten) commissioned by SVT. His factually based, metalevel story offers an in-depth insight into how Swedish playwright Lars Norén’s infamous prison drama experiment went totally wrong in 1999.

NFTVF acts as the secretary of the Nordic Council Film Prize, which had a remarkable year. For the first time ever SEVEN films were nominated as both Greenland and Faroe Islands submitted nominations. Faroese Island’s inaugural nomination film, Sakari Stórá’s The Last Paradise on Earth (Seinasta paradis á jørð) won the prestigious cultural prize together with his fellow scriptwriters Tommy Oksen and Mads Stegger and the film’s producer Jón Hammer. The sum of DKK 300.000 was, as always, shared equally between the writing, directing and producing talents to celebrate film as a collective form of art. Nordic titles are often praised for their ability to show authenticity in expression. The story of a young Faroese man who decides to stay in his community after the fish factory closes, is told with both unsentimental authenticity and hope.

2025 was overall a strong year for the Faroese film industry. In February the Geytin Awards in Tórshavn introduced a good range of upcoming Faroese film talents and in early September Faroese director Maria Tórgarð received the main development prize (NOK 250.000) at NFTVF’s bridge building event Nordic Talents. Her winning pitch of the impact documentary Knots raised the relevant question on how abortions still can be illegal in Faroe Islands in 2025.

The Nordic Talents event was restructured to fit our times of restricted travelling. Earlier 15 pitches were intertwined with screenings of 15 graduation films during two full days. From 2025 on the 10 best projects are selected from the yearly around 60 submissions and all finalists pitch the same day. The day before the main industry day all films are screened at the National Film School of Denmark, but they are also available online. The new concept proved to be a success.

In June 2025 Nordic Film & TV Fond’s popular lab Nordic Script (2022-2025) celebrated its grande finale in Helsinki with a masterclass in series writing conducted by the Oscar- and Emmy-nominated creator-writer Beau Willimon. The labs for writers and creative producers were organised in collaboration with City of Helsinki, Oslo Seriedagene and Göteborg International Film Festival. Our feedback surveys showed a unanimous appreciation for the 3 year-long initiative and its high-level mentors: Adam August, Anton Breum, Maria Claus and Margrete Soug Kåset.

NFTVF’s yearly list of internationally awarded Nordic productions mentions over 90 titles, many of which received numerous prizes along the year. Two Norwegian film makers with unique storytelling talent got especially much, well deserved, international attention. Dag Johan Haugerud’s celebrated trilogy Sex Dreams Love (Sex, Drømmer, Kjærlighet) continued its winning strike as its third part grabbed the Golden Bear in Berlin and Joakim Trier’s Sentimental Value (Affeksjonsverdi) its road to fame by winning the Grand Prix in Cannes from where it headed towards EFA and Oscar nominations in late 2025.

In Sentimental Value an elderly film director seeks connection to his actress daughter by offering her a role in a deeply personal film project. Compelling metalevel storytelling is also present in another 2025 Palme d’Or nominee, the Swedish Eagles of the Republic by writer-director Tarek Saleh. A famous Egyptian actor is pressured by the regime to play the president in a propagandistic film. Questions of identity are present in a quite different way in Norwegian Emilie Blinchfeldt’s awarded and Oscar short-listed debut film The Ugly Stepsister (Den stygge stesøsteren), which might be the most unique film of the year. The visually impressive film, inspired by the Cinderella fairy tale, bravely mixes body horror with satire. The film’s producer Maria Ekerhov deserves double salutes in 2025 as she also produced Sentimental Value.

The year 2025 welcomed Nordic political documentaries that help Nordic and international audiences navigate in our troubled and war-ridden world. David Borenstein’s internationally multi-awarded Danish documentary Mr Nobody against Putin is based on teacher Pavel Talankin’s documentation of how a small school is turned into a centre for recruiting soldiers to Russia’s war in Ukraine. The Norwegian Facing War, directed by Tommy Gulliksen, follows Jens Stoltenberg’s diplomatic work for Ukraine during his last year as NATO’s Secretary General, while Finnish Arthur Frank’s The Helsinki Effect offers an entertaining and insightful study of diplomacy at the 1975 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Helsinki.

Iceland’s official entry for the Oscars, Hlynur Pálmason’s The Love That Remains (Ástin sem eftir er) had a successful year after premiering in Cannes. The film follows a family navigating the parents’ breakup through humour and warmth, and has won several international awards during the year.

The dark drama comedy The Last Viking (Den sidste viking) by Anders Thomas Jensen, starring Mads Mikkelsen and Nikolaj Lie Kaas, drew more than 600,000 admissions in Denmark, breaking the director’s previous box office record. No domestic film in Danmark has attracted that many people during its premiere weekend since Purity of Vengeance (Journal 64, 2018), in the Department Q film series.

Several films based on well-known literary works also premiered. Based on Tove Jansson’s novel, Charlie McDowell’s Finnish feature The Summer Book follows 9-year-old Sophia’s summer in the Finnish archipelago. Emilie Blinchfeldt’s debut The Ugly Stepsister (Den stygge stesøsteren), a satirical body horror version inspired by Cinderella, earned several awards around Europe, including Best Feature Film at Sitges Fantastic Film Festival, and was shortlisted for the Oscars. On the drama series side, My Brother (Jag for ner till bror), directed by Sanna Lenken, is based on Karin Smirnoff’s best-selling novel, and explores themes of rediscovering one’s roots and confronting the past.

Dark comedy established a strong presence in Nordic drama in 2025. The Finnish series Queen of Fucking Everything earned the director Tiina Lymi the Best Director Award at Venice TV Awards. The series follows a successful real estate agent who finds herself left in debt, leading her to explore increasingly questionable methods to resolve her troubles. Queen of Fucking Everything achieved remarkable success, becoming the most-watched series ever on Finland’s public service streaming site Yle Areena, and gaining international attention, even reaching audiences in New Zealand. Dark comedy likewise characterised the Norwegian A Better Man (Ølhunden Berit), in line with the director Thomas Seeberg Torjussen’s previous works. The series follows how the main character Tom goes from a raging Internet troll to seeing the world from new perspectives after hackers reveal his identity. A Better Man was similarly well met domestically.

True characters and events also inspired Nordic dramas premiering in 2025. One example is the Icelandic drama series Vigdis (Vigdís) by Björn Hlynur Haraldsson and Tinna Hrafnsdóttir, which tells the story of Vigdís Finnbogadóttir and how she became the first democratically elected female head of state in the world.

For Jakob Rørvik’s Dates in Real Life, NRK and Maipo received the Creative Courage Award, a new award introduced by Nordisk Film & TV Fond (NFVTF) to honour brave producing and commissioning, especially in tough times when it might be easier to go for safe choices. The Nordic Series Script Award, previously known as the Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize, went to writer Pelle Rådström for his series Pressure Point (Smärtpunkten).

Broad display of topics and genres in upcoming productions

Tough times for drama are also reflected in the number of applications. Even though 2025 saw a decrease in drama series applications compared to recent years, we still have several high-quality works to look forward to. In 2025, NFTVF supported 38 feature films and 19 drama series, with a variety of themes in both features and drama series.

A big part of the supported projects study societal structures. Two titles look at the challenges of young professionals today. The Danish series The Uniform (Uniformen), by Jonas Alexander Arnby, raises questions about authoritarian power, following the consequences of a violent act by a police student, while Norwegian Still Breathing (LIS), directed by Eirik Svensson, instead focuses on the challenges medical students face in their hospital training on their journey to become professionals.

There are also many ambitious family dramas to look forward to. The Danish feature Woman, Unknown(Kvinde, Ukendt, directed by May el-Toukhy, follows the story of Marie, who is about to marry a wealthy older Christian widower, but her past secrets threaten to destroy her new start. Based on a book regarded as a classic in Finland, the feature Earth is a Sinful Song (Maa on syntinen laulu), directed by Mika Ronkainen, follows a young girl in late 1940s Lapland, where she discovers her sexuality and begins to challenge her father, not without consequences. Literature Nobel prize winner Jon Fosse has written the Norwegian feature Beloved (Kjærast), directed by Erik Poppe – a visual and strong story about the vulnerability of love, taking place in the breathtaking Norwegian nature.

Nature is also present in the Icelandic climate disaster series Avalanche (Flóðið), by Þórður Pálsson, that follows Freyja, a meteorologist who returns to her hometown to warn the villagers of an imminent catastrophe. The series casts light on today’s climate crisis through fiction.

Other funded films also having their world premieres in 2025 include The Helsinki Effect, Kyiv Soloists (Solistene), and The Dialogue Police (Dialogpolisen), which have all reached audiences across both festivals, cinema releases, and broadcast distribution. Altogether, the supported productions premiering in 2025 have reached audiences world-wide in impressive numbers and with a great impact.t

Ambition and diversity in the projects supported

Nordisk Film & TV Fond supported 23 documentary projects in 2025. Among them are projects with very big ambitions in terms of artistic intentions and international distribution potential. In Rescue, filmmaker Sine Plambech has full access to the Geo Barents, the world’s largest rescue ship, operated by Doctors Without Borders in the Mediterranean. Director Tonje Hessen Schei portrays scientists using artificial intelligence to decode whale communication in The Whale Mystery. Three former followers reveal the inner workings of a Christian sect and bring us close to a world of exorcism, speaking in tongues, and militant Christianity, in Godmother (Gudmor) by Adam Nielsen and Andreas Koefoed. In the new project by Margreth Olin, The Horse (Hester), she combines her sensitive cinematic capacity and bold sense of filmmaking in this coming-of-age journey, about a young free-range horse.

The 23 projects supported in 2025 bring a wide diversity in terms of both topics and directors. Sámi filmmaker Elisabeth Rasmussen brings a beyond belief story about modern science to the screen in We are Stardust (Vi er stjernestøv), ORSOQ - Seasons of Solitude by Greenlandic filmmaker Inuk Silis Høegh focuses on the desire to escape hectic life and find peace far away from busy cities, and Milkweed is a non-binary hybrid documentary that also challenges traditional working methods in its collaborative production approach. Menopause Mystery (Mysteriet om menopausen) is about the complex anatomy of menopause and the scientific struggle to understand it, whereas The Beauty of Errors (Kappale kauneinta Suomea) looks at the complex bond across three generations of men in a family. Many more diverse topics and filmmakers are being covered in the projects supported in 2025, including the taboo of facing a 10 year old abuse case within a skating community in The Art of Not Knowing (Konsten att inte veta), and climate change in Frost Without Snow and Ice (Frost uten Snø og Is).

Upcoming holiday-themed animated features for the young ones include the adventures of the bird Pikkuli, who needs to save Christmas in the Finnish feature Pikkuli and the Starlight Reindeer (Pikkuli ja Tähtipeura) by Metsämarja Aittokoski and Antti Aittokoski. The 3D-animated Norwegian Santa’s Workshop (Julenissens verksted) by Mette Rank Tange and Rasmus A. Sivertsen, based on the radio drama by Thorbjørn Egner, the man behind several classic Norwegian children’s stories, follows a Christmas adventure of finding Santa’s workshop.

In 2025 NFTVF supported the first ever animated Sámi feature film. Oskar Östergren Njajta’s The Forest of Knowledge (Kunskapens skog), aimed at the age group 7–10-year-olds, follows two siblings who travel to the parallel world Saajve, inspired by Sámi fairy tales.

Nordic children also have many exciting animated series to look forward to. The Icelandic Tulipop Seasons (Árstíðir Tulipop) is directed by Signý Kolbeinsdóttir, Sigvaldi J. Kárason, Evgenia Golubeva and Selina Wagner, and is inspired by Nordic folklore. In the upcoming series, the characters, familiar from the Tulipop Tales magical universe, learn about friendship during nature’s different seasons. Friendship is also at the core of the Danish primary school comedy Team Nuggets (Karlas Fantalastiske Klasse), by Michael Hegner and Tor Fruergaard. The animation series takes place in a school environment where strong emotions are explored both inside and outside the classroom.

Many supported live action productions target young adults and teenagers. Among them we find the Norwegian feature debuting director Eivind Landsvik’s Low Expectations (Lave forventninger) The film follows Maja, who is forced to stop her music career and move back home to rediscover who she is. The lead role is played by the internationally known Norwegian artist Girl in Red, Marie Ulven Ringheim. The Swedish feature Will You Care If I Die (Innan vi lyfter), based on Nicolas Lunabba’s successful autobiography and directed by Rojda Sekersöz, explores the true story of a young basket talent who finds trust in himself through his friendship with a youth leader. It shows how having someone believe in you can change everything in hard times.

Fanny Ovesen’s The Excursion (Klasseturen) follows a school class and its educational trip to Auschwitz. They expect to just have fun, but are hit with harsh realities. Ovesen’s earlier feature Live a Little (Leva lite), which won the Nordic Talents pitch prize in 2018, has done well in 2025, and received several awards during the year, among them the Children’s and Youth Film Prize at Nordic Film Days in Lübeck.

Previously supported C&Y projects that received international recognition during 2025 include Natasha Arthy’s Danish live action film Honey, which has received a long list of international awards. 13-year-old Honey hides the truth about herself and her chaotic family when she starts in a new class. The Finnish animated feature Fleak (Fleak: Kekseliäs ystäväni), by Jens Møller and Luca Bruno, premiered in the official selection of the Annecy Animation Festival, and later received a Special Mention at Fredrikstad Animation Festival. The feature follows how young Lauri, having lost his ability to walk, encounters a furry creature that takes him to adventures in another dimension.

Several Norwegian features for children and youth achieved success in cinemas. A Mouse Hunt for Christmas (Hvis ingen går i fella), by Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken, was the most watched film in Norwegian cinemas in 2025. It premiered in November, and had over 450,000 admissions by the end of December. Another Norwegian children’s film that did well in 2025 was Rasmus A. Sivertsen’s Rally – from Paris to the Pyramids (Flåklypa: Fra Paris til pyramidene), reaching over 272,000 spectators in national cinemas and making it to the national top 5. NFTVF’s distribution scheme supported the Nordic distribution of both films.

Among successful live action drama series could be mentioned SVT’s new version of the beloved Swedish family series Life on Seacrow Island (Vi på Saltkråkan), directed by Fredrik Edfeldt and written by Karin Arrhenius based on Astrid Lindgren’s original script. Another successful live action series, targeted for teenagers, is NRK’s Requiem for Selina (Rekviem for Selina), which depicts Norway’s early influencer industry. The series, directed by Rikke Gregersen and Ole Sebastian Kåss, premiered at Series Mania in Lille.

On the documentary side, 6 projects aimed at younger audiences were supported, one of which is animated. Meet the Little Great One (Den Lille Store), directed by Ulla Søe, is a Danish animated documentary series for children aged 5–10 that combines animation with documentary footage. Based on the idea that all famous people were once children, the series portrays the childhood of well-known figures such as Astrid Lindgren and Lionel Messi.

Documentaries for a younger audience also include Norwegian The Mystery Package (Mysteriepakken), directed by Sundance Award winner Silje Evensmo Jakobsen. In the documentary, it is up to the grandchildren to try solve an old family mystery of an annual anonymous Christmas package that has been sent to the family for over 20 years.

In the Swedish documentary The Art of Not Knowing (Konsten att inte veta), director Jonathan Lomar revisits footage of him and his friends skateboarding in their youth. As an adult, he learns about his friends suffering from mental and physical abuse by their team manager. The documentary explores how past experiences continue to haunt abused victims as grown-ups.

There was a wide variety of genres represented across all the countries. Among non-Icelandic Nordic films distributed to Iceland, genres range from the Finnish comedy Heavy Trip (Hevi reissu) to the Swedish horror film The Home (Hemmet) and the Danish love story When in Rome (Rom). The Swedish duo Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson’s documentary The Last Journey (Den sista resan) was also distributed to Iceland. On the documentary side, only two other films applied for (and received) distribution support: the Finnish The Helsinki Effect to Norway and the Norwegian Ski: The Greatest Ski Tour of All Time (Ski) to Sweden.

The distribution of Nordic animations continued in 2025 with the best travelling titles coming from Norway. These included the films Rally from Paris to the Pyramids (Flåklypa - Fra Paris til pyramidene), North (Reisen til nord), Captain Sabertooth and the Countess of Grel (Kaptein Sabeltann og Grevinnen av Gral), and A Mousehunt for Christmas (Hvis ingen går i fella), which targeted children and families, while the animation Spermageddon targeted teenagers and adults. Additionally, two animated features from Denmark, two from Sweden, and one from Finland were distributed with support from NFTVF. Many of the films are based on well-known universes or IPs. This is also true of some supported sequels: the Danish Checkered Ninja 3 (Ternet ninja 3) and the Danish live-action film The Children of Silver Street 2: Taking the Fight (Børnene fra Sølvgade 2: Tager kampen op). Another live-action film for young ones that crossed Nordic borders is the Norwegian Christmas film Brightly Shining (Stargate – En julefortelling), based on the bestseller by Ingvild H, Rishøi.

In 2025 the jury to select the Nordic script winners consisted of actor and scriptwriter Henriette Steenstrup (NO), producer and CEO at SHIPsBOY Joanna Szymańska (PO), and Linus Fremin (SE), TV critic and Creative Director at Make Your Mark.

The jury’s motivation for selecting Swedish Pressure Point as the winner was:

”In a time when authentic, brave storytelling is rare, Pressure Point stands out as a series that resonates with the intelligence of its audience. Instead of simplifying complex human experiences, it delves deeply into themes of freedom of expression, criminal justice, and rehabilitation, presenting characters in a profoundly human way. Inspired by a real-life tragedy, it masterfully explores the consequences of good intentions going awry, challenging us to reflect on the fragility of democracy. We proudly present this year’s Nordic Series Script Award to screenwriter Pelle Rådström for Pressure Point.”

The winner was announced at TV Drama Vision at Göteborg Film Festival, together with the winners of The Creative Courage Award. Liselott Forsman (CEO of NFTVF) and Cia Edström (Head of TV Drama Vision) selected the winner of the latter prize with the following motivation:

“It is funny, ironic, and touching. The first-ever Creative Courage series award goes to a brave producer-commissioner collaboration that has brought something wonderfully fresh to our Nordic industry. This inspiring series renews the romantic comedy genre, combines animation with live-action and offers an insightful take on dating in a world where a virtual life might feel safer than a real one. Thank you, NRK and Maipo, for making Jakob Rørvik’s series Dates in Real Life happen to the joy of us all.”

All nominees were invited to the Norwegian Film Festival in Haugesund for the announcement ceremony, where they could attend the festival programme, network, and be present during the official screenings of the nominated films. From late August until the winner's announcement in October, NFTVF organised additional official screenings in collaboration with various parties: Aarhus Film Days in Denmark, Helsinki International Film Festival in Finland, Stockholm Film Festival/Bio Skandia in Sweden, and for the first time Nuuk International Film Festival in Greenland. Additionally, screenings were held in Reykjavik, Iceland, organised by Bioparadis.

The Nordic jury is comprised of the chairs of the national juries. The seven jury members in 2025 were Professor Heidi Hilarius-Kalkau Philipsen, Centre for Media Studies (DK); Lecturer and board member of Klippfisk Jan Berg Jørgensen (FO); Communications specialist Marjo Pipinen (FI), the Finnish Film Foundation; Producer and and chairman of Film.GL Klaus Georg Hansen (GL); producer Jóna Finnsdóttir (IS); Professor Anne Gjeldsvik, Department of Art and Media Studies (NO); and Museum Director Jonas Holmberg, Kalmar Art Museum (SE).

Out of four features and three documentaries, the Faroese Islands’ inaugural nomination won the prestigious prize. The winners were Sakaris Stórá, Tommy Oksen, Mads Stegger and Jón Hammer.

It was a strong year for the Swedish university, as another SKH graduate, Sepehr Nosrati, was awarded the Special Mention, for his film Snowfall in April. The jury’s motivation:

“The jury was already impressed by the intensity of the storytelling in the graduation film. This filmmaker manages to explore vital topics in a way that simultaneously has a possibility to engage broad audiences. This combination of genre and thematic substance is truly something that we need more of in the Nordic region. The Nordic Talents Special Mentioning goes to Sepehr Nosrati for the film Snowfall in April.”

Mixed: Cases where the role was shared by persons of more than one gender.

Note: No other genders than female/male applied for support in 2025. If two or more of the same gender shared the role, they are counted as one.