22/10/2012 - Already transplanted to the UK and France, Danish and Swedish pubcasters DRTV and SVT's thriller named Best International Crime and Thriller Series

Jointly backed by Danish and Swedish pubcasters DRTV and SVT, The Bridge has been awarded the International TV Dagger Award for Best International Crime and Thriller Series, in competition with Denmark's The Killing 2 and the American titles, Boardwalk Empire 2), Dexter 6 and six-time Emmy-winner (2012) Homeland. The prize is given by the UK Crime Writers' Association and ITV3.

"I would never have thought we could win against these series," said Bo Ehrhardt of Nimbus Film ApS, which staged the project with Sweden's Freelance International (and whose own favourite was Homeland). After the first season of 10 episodes, Ehrhardt is currently producing The Bridge 2, which will be aired in Denmark and Sweden during autumn 2013.

Created by Swedish conceptual writer Hans Rosenfeld with among others Denmark's Nikolaj Scherfig, The Bridge follows a murder investigation - the dead body of a woman is found on the Øresund bridge between Denmark and Sweden, right on the border – the top half is of a Swedish top politician, the bottom from a Danish prostitute.

Top detectives from the Danish (Kim Bodnia) and Swedish (Sofia Helin) police – both strong individual characters - are assigned to the case, and they both learn to collaborate and understand each other while probing the case, which is apparently linked to a string of killings with political motives.

While the original The Bridge has already aired on UK television, British production outfit Kudos is busy transplanting the series to the UK and France. The working title is The Tunnel - the Øresund has been replaced by the English Channel and the bridge by the 50.3-kilometre Eurotunnel between Folkestone and Calais.