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The writer of the series, Sara Johnsen, has snagged the circa €20,000 award in a competition that included four other Nordic series. At the 43rd Göteborg Film Festival, and on the first day of TV Drama Vision, the Norwegian TV series 22 July emerged as the winner of the Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize, given out for the fourth time in a row. The award, worth Nok 200,000, was bestowed upon writer Sara Johnsen, for “outstanding writing of a Nordic drama series”. Johnsen, who is one of the best-known Norwegian filmmakers, wrote and directed the award-winning features Kissed by Winter, Upperdog and All That Matters Is Past, before joining the writing team of the successful Norwegian political thriller series Occupied. The six-part series 22 July, which Johnsen co-created with the director of the series, Pål Sletaune (Next Door), is her first TV drama as head writer. The jury...

Norway’s Sara Johnsen has won the 2020 Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize for her writing on Nrk’s “22 July,” a six-part painstaking – and often inevitably pained – reconstruction using fictional composite characters but often meticulously recreated scenes of how Norway reacted to its 2011 terror attacks.

The award, for outstanding screenwriting, was presented to Johnsen at a ceremony on Wednesday evening at the TV Drama Vision section of this week’s Göteborg Film Festival in Sweden. The kudos comes with a Nok 200,000 cash endowment.

Best known as the writer-director of award-winning feature films – “Kissed by Winter”, “Upperdog,” “All That Matters is Past” – Johnsen served as head writer on “22 July,” a series created for Norwegian pubcaster production arm Nrk Drama by Johnsen and Pål Sletaune and directed by Sletaune. It is distributed by the U.K.-based Drg, part of the Nordic Entertainment Group (Nent).

Not to be confused with Paul Greengrass’ Netflix movie,...

Cannes winner Blue is the Warmest Colour also picked up a prize at the 41st Norwegian International Film Festival (Niff) awards.

Danish director Per Fly picked up the Nordic Film Prize at the Niff awards last night [Aug 20] for his biopic Monica Z (Waltz for Monica).

The story of legendary Swedish singer-actress Monica Zetterlund stars Edda Magnason in her first film role. Monica Z will be released in Norway on Sept 13.

Fly will next direct Backstabbing for Beginners, based on the true story of Un whistleblower Michael Soussan who called for an investigation of the Un’s dealings with Saddam Hussein. Fly is working on the screenplay with Us writer Daniel Pyne (The Sum of All Fears) and it marks the first project developed for the international market by Creative Alliance - a new company created earlier this year by six Nordic directors and Us outfit Parts & Labor.

Other winners included Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue Is the Warmest Colour, which...

A woman wakes next to a river, battered and barely alive, with the bodies of two men prone next to her. So begins the trailer for Sara Johnsen's All That Matters Is Past (Uskyld).The director of Vinterkyss and Upperdog, Johnsen has a well earned reputation for dark and edgy fare that defies easy categorization. Are they thrillers? Dark character dramas? It doesn't really matter, because what they mostly are is very, very good.Janne meets William after many years of separation. She leaves her family to live with him in a cabin by the river and they recreate the feeling of love and lust that they had as children, being sweethearts playing in the woods. When a canoeist by coincidence finds Janne in the forest,...