12/03/2013 - After record audiences for the thriller series starring Danish actress Iben Hjejle, Danish commercial pubcaster TV2/Danmark commissions another six episodes

After a first season with an average 1.2 million viewers for each episode – the largest audience for a drama series on the channel in the five years – Danish commercial pubcaster TV2/Danmark has signed Danish production outfit Miso Film for another term of Dicte thrillers starring Danish actress Iben Hjejle.

“They are exciting and gifted entertainment, with an extraordinary team of actors with Hjejle in the lead – a big success which we will obviously continue,” said TV2 programme director Palle Strøm of the station's No 1 primetime offer, which is currently attracting 900,000 Swedes every Monday.

Danish author Elsebeth Egholm, who also supplied the books for Miso Film’s Those Who Kill TV series, created the universe of Dicte, a newly divorced journalist, who returns to her hometown of Aarhus with her daughter, Rosa. A crime reporter, Dicte stumbles on cases which open wounds from her past – but she also solves them with help from police inspector Wagner.

Scripted by Dorte Warnøe Høgh and Ida Maria Rydén, the first six episodes of Dicte were directed by Jannik Johansen, Charlotte Sachs Bostrup, Kasper Barfoed, and produced by Peter Bose, Jonas Allen, and Christian Steengaard Potalivo for Miso Film, TV2/Danmark, Sweden’s TV4 and Germany’s ZDF.

Besides Hjejle the cast includes Lars Brygmann, Lærke Winther, Lene Maria Christensen, Dar Salim, Lars Ranthe and Peter Schrøder. SF Film Danmark handles Scandinavian distribution and ZDF Enterprises international sales of the series, which was supported by, ao, the Danish Film Institute and the municipality of Aarhus.

Denmark’s second-largest city expects to exploit the programmes’ place branding to attract tourists, as has Copenhagen by organising In the Footsteps of Sarah Lund (The Killing), or Ystad in Sweden using the Kurt Wallander merchandise. The local tourist office provides the following introductions to Dicte’s Aarhus.