Norwegian screenwriters Mette M Bølstad and Stephen Uhlander, who provided the script for Norwegian director Per-Olav Sørensen’s TV series Nobel, have won the SEK 200,000 (€20,600) Award for Best Nordic Script for a TV Series, which was presented for the first time at the Göteborg International Film Festival. Nobel had previously received the Prix Europa for Best Mini-Series of the Year.

“This is a strong, unpredictable drama with a sense of fresh realism. The story was thrilling and worked well also as a metaphor of the global instability between war and peace,” said the jury, comprising Swedish producer Lars Blomgren, French drama consultant Isabelle Péchou, Finnish critic Leena Virtanen and Swedish-American producer Gudrun Giddings.

“Nordic television drama – and so-called ‘Nordic noir’ – has reached international attention, so we think it is important to highlight the importance of good scriptwriters,” said the Göteborg Film Festival’s artistic director, Jonas Holmberg, at the sold-out, two-day TV Drama Vision seminar at Biopalatset, where the first two episodes of the NRK series about Norway’s military involvement in Afghanistan were shown.

The new award has been instigated with (and financed by) the Oslo-based Nordisk Film & TV Fond, a promotional and top-financing fund for film and TV productions from the five Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. “Göteborg introduced its TV Drama Vision platform before others, so it was obvious to choose this festival as a partner,” said the fund’s CEO, Petri Kemppinen. “We want to focus on the best skills and imagination needed to create characters and story layers that hook the audience,” he added.

Nobel was in competition alongside The Day Will Come (Denmark’s TV2), Love and Order (Finland’s YLE), Prisoners (Iceland’s RUV) and The Bonus Family [+leggi anche:
intervista: Marie Barraco
scheda series] (Sweden’s SVT).