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Filming starts for next grisly Nordic Noir treat

The Local Sweden
The Local Sweden - [email protected]
Filming starts for next grisly Nordic Noir treat
The team behind 'The Bridge' (actress Sofia Helin pictured) are producing a new crime drama. Photo: Ola Torkelsson/SCANPIX

Nordic Noir fans have been on the edge of their seats this month with the filming of the next Scandinavian crime thriller by the team behind the massively successful Swedish-Danish drama 'The Bridge' getting under way in Costa Rica and Gothenburg. Here's what you need to know about 'Spring Tide'.

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The new 10-episode crime drama 'Springfloden' ('Spring Tide') is set to hit Swedish TV screens in autumn 2016. It follows a police student and her jaded ex-cop mentor as they track down a cold case from 1990 where a pregnant woman is murdered and buried on the beach.

The team have just returned to Sweden after shooting a number of scenes in Costa Rica and are currently filming on location in Gothenburg.

The story is based on a novel by Nordic crime authors Cilla and Rolf Börjlind, behind best sellers 'Beck' and 'Arne Dahl', and stars Swedish household names such as Kjell Bergqvist, Julia Ragnarsson, Helena Bergström and Johan Widerberg.

It is being produced by Filmlance International – the creators of The Bridge – in cooperation with SVT, Film Väst, Nadcon, Lumiere and ZDF.

In other words, good news for fans of the Nordic Noir genre, which has had a global boom in recent years with series such as Swedish detective drama 'Wallander', massive Danish hit 'The Killing' and of course 'The Bridge' shown on television well beyond the borders of Scandinavia.

The genre has been credited with inspiring recent British and US detective series such as 'Broadchurch', 'The Fall' and 'True Detective' and has gained an extensive following in both countries. Next weekend, from June 6th-7th, fans will gather for the Nordicana festival in London in celebration of Nordic Noir.

In Australia and the US, the original Swedish version of Wallander is currently being broadcast by stations SBS and ABC, while British actor Kenneth Branagh just wrapped up filming of his fourth and final series of the BBC adaptation with the same name in Ystad in southern Swedish region Skåne.

“Wallander has meant a lot by selling the name of Ystad abroad. Many people that did not know about Sweden and Skåne know about Ystad as the hometown of Wallander. It is part of our branding of the town. We also know that a lot of tourists – actually 15 percent – come just because of Wallander,” Ystad municipality film strategist Petra Rundqvist told The Conversation earlier this week.

Ystad is not the only location that has been able to cash in on the Nordic Noir boom. Last month the body which manages the Öresund bridge told The Local that more tourists were making the trip between Sweden and Denmark after it was made famous in The Bridge (known as 'Bron' in Swedish or 'Broen' in Danish).

“I have a feeling that more people are curious about the bridge these days,” said Øresundsbro Konsortiet's head of public communications, Sanna Holmqvist.

The third series of the show, which stars Swedish actress Sofia Helin as police officer Saga Norén, is scheduled to be broadcast in Sweden and Denmark in autumn 2015 and is expected to make it to Britain the following year.

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