Soon-to-launch VoD service Walter Presents picked up several Euro TV series at the MIPCOM buyer’s market this week, including The Team, starring Lars Mikkelsen.
Walter Presents is set to launch in January 2016 with the German spy thriller Deutschland 83, and Nordisk Film & TV Fond has announced that four more titles have been picked up for the new UK video-on-demand service dedicated to foreign-language drama.
Blue Eyes (Blå ögon)
In this Swedish political thriller/mystery, right-wing politician Annika Nilsson is murdered in Ludvika, one of Sweden’s most picturesque and serene small towns, just weeks before the country’s general elections. Her daughter Sofia is convinced that immigrants are the culprits, so she goes on the hunt for scapegoats. As she does, she comes across Veritas, a violent, extreme-right group that is carrying out attacks against Swedish society and planning a bombing of the Stockholm Stock Exchange.
Meanwhile, Sarah Farzin, the Ministry of Justice’s chief of staff, has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Then her replacement, Elin Hammar, becomes aware of important documents going missing and other strange incidents within the department that seem to be connected to her predecessor’s disappearance. The deeper Elin digs into the matter, the more she finds trails all pointing to Ludvika. If there is a connection between Sarah’s disappearance and Annika’s murder, what is it?
Blue Eyes stars Louise Peterhoff (Real Humans, Anno 1790), Sven Nordin (Lilyhammer, Torpedo), Kjell Wilhelmsen (30 Degrees in February, Johan Falk), and Anna Bjelkerud (Ängelby, Wallander). The series is produced by Strix Drama AB in association with SVT and Film i Väst, and written by Alex Haridi (Real Humans), Björn Paqualin (Wallander), and Antonia Pyk (Annika Bengtzon: Crime Reporter).
Clan
The five Goethals sisters — Eva, Veerle, Birgit, Rebekka, and Goedele — have clung to each other since the premature death of their parents. But ever since one sister married the pain-in-the-you-know-what Jean-Claude, the bond between them has frayed. So, to bring her back into the clan, the other four plot to get her husband permanently out of the picture by concocting a host of ingenious schemes. However, clever and quick-witted as the sisters might be, planning Jean-Claude’s murder turns out to be far easier than actually committing it. And with each failed attempt, the collateral damage grows.
Clan stars Barbara Sarafian (Tegen de sterren op, Bullhead), Kristine Van Pellicom (David, Rang 1), Ruth Becquart (Deadline 25/5, Zuidflank), Maaike Neuville (Van Vlees en Bloed, Katarakt), Inge Paulussen (Cordon, Witse), and Dirk Roofthooft (The Storm, The Wedding Party). The Dutch drama/black comedy is written by Malin-Sarah Gozin and Bert Van Dael (Connie & Clyde), and produced by Caviar Content.
The Team (Mord uden grænser)
This multilingual (English, French, Flemish, German, Danish, Swedish), pan-European crime drama centers on a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) of cross-border European police officers — experts in forensics, legal, and IT, plus profilers and psychologists — fighting international crime across the continent, including human trafficking, illegal migration, prostitution, slavery, money laundering, tax fraud, bribery, and corruption, for starters.
The JIT is made up of Harald Bjørn from Denmark (Lars Mikkelsen, Borgen, The Killing), Jackie Mueller from Germany (Jasmin Gerat, SOKO Köln, Coast Guard), and Alicia Verbeek (Veerle Baetens, Cordon, Code 37) from Belgium.
The Team opens with the discovery of a murdered woman in Copenhagen, killed by a shot through her left eye, with one of her fingers cut off. Hours later, a woman in Antwerp and another in Berlin are found murdered in the same manner, also with a finger cut off. For Harald, Jackie, and Alicia, Belgian journalist Jean Louis Poquelin (Carlos Leal, Casino Royale, The Way) becomes the prime suspect, as he visited all three victims just before they were killed. And it seems he’s planning to continue killing.
But then a fourth woman is found shot to death and Jean Louis is kidnapped, and the case takes a new direction. The track leads to the Cannes Film Festival of six years ago, and to a multinational criminal organization headed by Lithuanian billionaire Marius Loukauskis (Nicholas Ofczarek, Wir Staatskünstler, BÖsterreich), one that has branched out across Europe, and has many employees and piles of dead bodies to show for its success.
The investigation takes the JIT from Berlin to Copenhagen, Antwerp to The Hague, and the Austrian Alps to Lithuania, and reveals how organized crime cuts through and affects all layers and members of society, especially the victims of crime and their relatives.
Produced by Network Movie Film-und Fernsehproduktion for ZDF, in association with Danmarks Radio (DR), Nordisk Film, Lunanime, Lumière, C-Films, and Superfilm, The Team is written by Peter Thorsboe and Mai Brostrøm (The Eagle, The Protectors).
Thicker than Water (Tjockare än vatten)
Björn Bengtsson (30 Degrees in February, Johan Falk), Joel Spira (Ängelby, Anno 1790), Aliette Opheim (Johan Falk, Arne Dahl), Stina Ekblad (Wallander, The Inspector and the Sea), and Tobias Zilliacus (Fortitude, The Hypnotist) star in this family drama from Sweden.
In the Swedish archipelago is the beautiful island of Sunnanö, where Anna-Lisa Waldemar (Ekblad) runs a popular B&B with her son Oskar (Spira) and his family. Unbeknownst to him, his mother invites his estranged siblings, opportunistic brother Lasse (Bengtsson) and actress sister Jonna (Opheim), to the B&B. Oskar’s shock at seeing them is followed by two more: the death of Anna-Lisa from cancer, and the stipulation in her will that her three children must run the B&B together for a year or forfeit all of their inheritance.
Their mother’s last-ditch effort to reunite her children forces the siblings to confront unresolved issues in their family’s past, struggle with their emotions in the present, and discover if blood is really thicker than water. Not to mention deal with a very dark secret that had been buried in a most unfortunate place.
Thicker than Water is written by Morgan Rockström and Niklas Rockström (Wallander), and produced by Nice Drama AB in association with YLE, SVT Sveriges Television AB, and Filmpool Nord.
Stay tuned for details regarding these shows’ premiere dates on Walter Presents.
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