05/11/2013 - Swedish directors Per Simonsson and Stefan Roos revive the characters from their televised 2011 Christmas calendar for a new feature, Christmas of the Thieves – The Secret of the Wizard

Swedish directors Per Simonsson and Stefan Roos have started principal photography in Stockholm for Christmas of the Thieves – The Secret of the Wizard, featuring the characters from Swedish pubcaster SVT’s Christmas calendar Christmas of the Thieves (photo), aired between December 1-24, 2011.

Produced by Jenny Gilbertsson, for Sweden’s Yellow Bird Entertainment (credited for, ao, the adaption of Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s Millennium [+see also:
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film profile] trilogy), with SVT and Nordisk Film, the Christmas adventure will star Tea Stjärne, Gustaf Hammarsten, Elisabet Carlsson, Gustaf Skarsgård and be launched next autumn.

“It feels great to be back in the fairytale world of the Thieves,” said the team of writer-turned-director Simonsson and actor-turned-director Roos, who scripted both the TV series and the upcoming feature. “Now a new exciting adventure is waiting for Charlie, Kurre and the others – not to mention ourselves.”

In the film Charlie, the foundling, has been adopted by Kurre, a former pickpocket, and his girlfriend Gerda. When they get their own child, Charlie feels neglected; at a touring funfair she meets a mysterious wizard who introduces her to a world of magic – but what is his own secret?

Yellow Bird is not deserting Nordic noir, though - it has acquired the rights for Swedish author Robert Kariel’s upcoming thriller The Swede with US production outfit Chernin Entertainment to develop as a television series for 20^th Century Fox TV. The story follows a Swedish secret service agent who is sent to a remote US military base to interrogate a prisoner thought to be a fellow Swede, then drawn into an investigation led by a CIA woman agent, which takes them from the 2004 Thailand tsunami to a terrorist attack in Topeka Kansas. Chernin’s Peter Chernin and Katherine Pope will executive produce with Berna Levin and Marianne Grey, of Yellow Bird.