18/05/2013 - Launched at Cannes, Sonet Television is developing series from Swedish authors Kerstin Ekman, Lars Kepler, Henning Mankell, Håkon Nesser, Leif GW Persson and Norway's Anne Holt

Danish Oscar-winning director Susanne Bier (In A Better World [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2010)) is in talks to direct Blackwater, a television series currently being scripted by Klaus Östergren from Swedish author Kerstin Ekman's 1993 novel. Blackwater is one the first line-up from Sonet Television, the new  entity launched at Cannes yesterday (May 17) by Swedish production company, Sonet Film.

Now a subsidiary of Swedish major Svensk Filmindustri, Sonet was instigated by Swedish producer Peter Possne almost 30 years ago; Possne is still heading the producer team of Rickard Petrelius and Sandra Harms, adding former drama chief at Swedish pubcaster SVT and head of Stockholm's Royal Dramaten Theatre, Ingrid Dahlberg, credited for several films from Ingmar Bergman scripts.

"The TV division will give Sonet Film an even stronger market position in the fast changing global media market," said Possne. Sonet has been involved in more than 70 features, including Swedish directors Kay Pollak's Oscar-nominated As It Is in Heaven [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2004) and Lasse Hallström's return to Sweden after 25 years, The Hypnotist [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile].

Projects in development - the first will shoot next year - include drama and crime series by Swedish internationally acclaimed writers such as Hypnotist writer Lars Kepler (ie Alexander and Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril), preparing a spin-off from the 2012 feature; Henning Mankell, whose new Wallander character is a woman ambassador in The Embassy; three books by Håkon Nesser.

Leif GW Persson, who most recently wrote Death of A Pilgrim about the murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, has set The Infiltrator in the criminal underworld of Göteborg. Norwegian author Anne Holt's series about crime psychologist Inger Johanne Vik and detective inspector Yngvar Stubø will be relocated from Oslo to Stockholm for the screen.