Norwegian Mammon snags top prizes at Seoul TV festival
- NRK follows up on Nordic noir with a new series, which has already been sold to the UK’s Channel 4 and 20th Century Fox Television for a US remake
Norwegian pubcaster NRK’s TV thriller series Mammon was yesterday (4 September) awarded the Golden Bird Prize for Best Mini-series, and its Norwegian director, Cecilie Mosli, won for Best Director at Asia’s largest TV drama festival, the Seoul International Drama Awards.
“The prizes show that the recent investments in Norwegian TV drama have paid off,” said new head of NRK drama Ivar Køhn. “Generally, it is of a high standard, and we have experienced an increasing interest in our current and upcoming productions.”
Scripted by Gjermund Stenberg Eriksen and his producer brother Vegard Stenberg Eriksen, Mammon took Norway by storm when it was aired in January. Compared to Danish pubcaster DR’s The Killing, Borgen/Government and The Bridge, it sold immediately to the UK’s Channel 4 and has since been purchased by, among others, 20th Century Fox Television for an American remake.
“This is an energy booster for when we now start filming season two,” added the producer, whose Mammon, realised by actress-turned-director Mosli, was up against 120 international drama series in Seoul, including Homeland, Orphan Black and Real Humans.
Set over six days, it follows news reporter Peter Verås (Jon Øigarden), who receives a message from a mysterious woman called “Sophia” with evidence of fraud, involving Norway’s political and financial elite. It incriminates Verås’s own brother, Daniel (Anders T Andersen), who then commits suicide – and to his astonishment, Peter discovers that “Sophia” was actually his brother.
“I am obviously flattered that Mammon has been likened to the Danish thriller series – however, they are all ambitious when it comes to credibility, and they are all Nordic and noir,” explained Mosli, who won an Amanda – Norway’s national film prize – for her performance in Norwegian director Arild Andresen’s The Orheim Company [+see also:
trailer
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