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Viaplay’s streaming service — specializing in award-winning Scandinavian series and films — is now available as an add-on subscription on Amazon’s Prime Video Channels in the United States.

Starting Wednesday, Prime members in the U.S. will be able to sign up for Viaplay for $5.99 per month (with a seven-day free trial available for eligible customers) through Prime Video Channels.

In February, Viaplay shut down its own app and direct-to-consumer streaming service in the U.S. and Canada, and the company has now focused its international distribution strategy in building growth via partnerships. Viaplay is already available in North America through partner platforms such as Comcast Xfinity, the Roku Channel and Xumo.

Viaplay said its U.S. content offering centers on “the Nordic region’s high-quality and psychologically penetrating series and films, from atmospheric and suspenseful crime dramas and provocative and stylish young-adult series to award-winning dramas and riveting documentaries.

Viaplay shut its direct-to-consumer service in February, but the Scandi streamer is still active in the U.S.

The platform has struck a deal to launch a subscription channel on Prime Video Channels, offering originals such as Börje – The Journey of a Legend, Furia and Gold Run.

The channel launches on Prime Video Channels today, offering access to Viaplay for $5.99 a month, with a free seven-day trial.

The development comes after Viaplay closed its subscription streaming app in North America after a turbulent 2023 in which the Sweden-based company made 25% of its staff redundant and restructured around a package of sports rights and unscripted content. Expensive scripted shows were axed and sold, and the streamer has since pulled out of North America and the UK.

Exits from the Baltics and Poland are also coming, with Group President and CEO Jørgen Madsen Lindemann telling shareholders the company “will be different” in its annual report last month.

A big forest setting in the outskirts of Oslo, Norway, sets the breathtaking scene for creator/director/co-writer Simen Alsvik’s gripping new crime series, Fenris, which debuted on Viaplay on Aug. 17. If you loved the solve-the-puzzle intensity found in shows like Mare of Easttown and the exceptional Netflix series Lilyhammer, in which Alsvik was lead director, then Fenris should be on your must-watch list.

The plot and its actors pack a punch in this engaging series. Emma (Ida Elise Broch) is passionate about her work as a biologist for the Norwegian Nature Inspectorate. When she discovers her father, Marius Storhammar (Magnus Krepper), has stopped his duties as a wolf researcher, she takes her son Leo to Østbygda to investigate. Something is awry with her father, but there’s also another matter that Emma can’t shake. A young boy goes missing without a trace in the village. Locals suspect wolves were involved,...

Exclusive: Nordic programmer Viaplay has set the slate of projects it will debut on the North American version of its streaming platform this summer.

The crop of projects will include a mix of films and series, including the three-part docuseries Liv Ullmann – A Road Less Travelled, which will debut on June 22. The doc, which features contributions from Cate Blanchett, Jessica Chastain, and Jeremy Irons, offers an intimate portrait of Ullman’s decades-long career.

Synopsis reads: Actor. Director. Script writer. Author. Activist. Honorary Oscar winner. Few women carry all these titles, and even fewer do it successfully to the level of Liv Ullmann for 62 years and counting. This intimate portrait explores the greatness, legacy and longevity in the life of a world-famous artist, but it also explores the struggles all women face in their fight for having a career, a voice and the respect they deserve – a fight that Liv Ullmann...