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Sofia Helin as Iris, in “Fallen” (Sanningen). Photo: Carolina Romare. Courtesy of MHz Choice

Regular readers will recognize the name Sofia Helin from previous Scandinavian crime series reviews, including the highly praised original incarnation of “The Bridge.” The ultra busy actress stars in “Fallen” (originally “Sanningen”) as yet another police detective, Iris, in a solid six-episode season procedural. In this vehicle, she’s carrying more emotional baggage than usual.

She arrives in Malmo to head up their cold-case unit, reeling from the unsolved murder of her boyfriend in Stockholm. She’s immediately greeted with the unearthing of an old corpse that might have been a teenager who’d disappeared 18 years earlier. That triggers reopening the previous investigation, which proceeds while awaiting forensic confirmation of the remains. Is it Benjamin, or someone else? Several old wounds are opened and potential suspects identified. Meanwhile, Iris tries to help with finding who murdered her beloved Christian,...

Tove director Zaida Bergroth: “We had a wonderful production designer [Catharina Nyqvist Ehrnrooth] who studied every little detail and she was able to build this wonderful place for us.” Photo: Sami Kuokkanen

Zaida Bergroth’s Tove (Finland’s 2021 Oscar submission), screenplay by Eeva Putro, stars Alma Pöysti (Xavier Picard and Hanna Hemilä’s Moomins On The Riviera) as Tove Jansson, the creator of Moomins and Krista Kosonen (in Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 with Carla Juri and in Bergroth’s Miami) as theatre director Vivica Bandler with Shanti Roney, Joanna Haartti, Robert Enckell, Kajsa Ernst, Jakob Öhrman, Eeva Putro, Liisi Tandefelt, Wilhelm Enckell.

During our conversation Zaida brings up a scene in Tove that she calls Aki Kaurismaki’s Paris, I remark that Lars von Trier’s Melancholia may have been influenced by the Moomins, and Alma Pöysti is quoted as saying “we are Moomin-marinated children.” We also...

The Moomins, with their hippo-like silhouettes, are beloved cartoon characters familiar to readers around the globe. But less is known about their creator, the bisexual, Swedish-speaking, Finnish visual artist and author Tove Jansson and her surprisingly unconventional life. The engaging biopic “Tove,” from Finnish helmer Zaida Bergroth, goes a long way toward remedying that knowledge gap. Featuring a mesmerizing lead performance by Alma Pöysti, the sensuously textured film, shot on 16mm, concentrates on a formative decade in Tove’s life (from the mid-1940s to mid-’50s) and explores her artistic and personal passions, and the challenges they entail. With multiple hooks, sales and festival interest should be strong.

Born in 1914 and raised in an artistic, bohemian family in Helsinki, Tove is the eldest child of a prominent sculptor father (Robert Enckel) and a supportive graphic-artist mother (Kajsa Ernst). Although a student of painting, she, like her mother, also creates illustrations,...