At the first meeting for The Cold Song, director Mikael Marcimain told producer Christian Rank he thought it was the last chance they would get to make a show like it.
The six-part Swedish series, an adaptation of Norwegian author Linn Ullmann’s acclaimed novel, recalls the kind of ambitious, European TV seen a decade ago, when global streamers were backing big swing dramas in international territories. The plot follows a wealthy family whose lives fall apart after their young nanny disappears during a summer holiday and the family’s secrets and buried guilt rise to the surface.
Marciman, whose credits include the Series Mania best series winner Blackwater (2023) and the thriller Call Girl, which won the Fipresci international critics award in Toronto, says for him, the show was “an excuse to make something new, to do a new take on on what we call the Nordic Noir. You know those series, we do a lot of them in Sweden, about investigators, usually middle aged men, investigating the disappearance, usually of a young woman. We also have a girl disappearing [in this series] but it’s more of an excuse to tell the story about this family. I call it less a crime thriller than and emotional thriller.”
The Cold Song, which Fremantle is pitching to buyers at Mipcom this week, arrives at a moment when European television is pulling back. Budgets have tightened and commissioners have retreated to the familiar — backing low-cost dramas and safe-bet crime formats.
“Money has definitely pulled back,” says Rank, who produced The Cold Song through Fremantle-owned Miso Film Sweden. “We are in a way back to a system that looks more like it did before the whole golden age of TV. Back to more classic crime shows, classic dramas. These kind of hybrid series, international shows with an international appeal, there’re not so many of them.”
The Cold Song is a co-production between Miso Film, Swedish public broadcaster SVT, regional film fund Film i Väst and the Northern European public broadcasters participating in New8, the collaboration announced in 2023 to develop and finance drama for audiences across the region. The New8 group brings together public broadcasters from the Nordics, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, who pool resources to jointly finance and produce projects, which they release across the respective territories.
Rank estimates New8’s involvement boosted the budget for The Cold Song “by around 20 to 30 percent” both through direct funding and by opening up access to other European tax incentives and other investors. The show’s creative team was able to concentrate on making the series itself rather than second-guessing every decision to appeal to the international market.
“That is an extreme luxury that you very, very rarely get these days,” says Rank. “And I think that is the power of that New8 collaboration. It allows for the people doing the show to do something bold and brave and something that sits a little out of the market or out of the ordinary.”
For Rank, who previously worked at Danish public broadcaster DR during the period when it produced global breakouts Borgen and The Killing, the approach recalls an earlier phase of Scandinavian television, when unconventional, locally-rooted stories could find audiences far beyond their home markets.
“I remember when we screened Borgen internally at DR, and the head of drama stood up, and he was like, ‘This is the one show that will never travel,’” Rank says. “And it ended up being the show that travelled the most.”
The Cold Song offers a case study in how public broadcasters can preserve space for ambitious, international television at a time when commercial outfits are hedging their bets.
Whether that approach will find buyers beyond Northern Europe remains an open question. Rank acknowledges that selling European drama, particularly into the U.S. market, is more difficult than it was five years ago. After its market launch at Mipcom, the show will present at industry events in Europe and is eying the festival circuit for an official premiere.
Check out the first images of The Cold Song, provided exclusively to The Hollywood Reporter, below.
