News

Denmark’s Dr Sales is bringing to market “Still Breathing,” the latest medical drama from Scandinavia, teaming “Occupied” writer Karianne Lund, “Safe House” director Erik Svensson and “Beforeigners” producer Rubicon TV.

Described by Dr Sales as “raw” and “gripping” and by Banijay Entertainment as “emotionally charged,” the Nrk series is set at a struggling Norwegian hospital where four young doctors face the impossible moral dilemmas of a health system stretched beyond the limit.

Produced by Rubicon TV, part of Banijay Nordic and also behind Netflix hit “Billionaire Island,” “Still Breathing” was commissioned by Norway’s Nrk, one of Europe’s top pubcasters which is a reliable source of main competition highlights at top European TV festivals such as Series Mania and Canneseries.

“‘Still Breathing’ embodies the socially conscious Nordic storytelling Dr Sales stands for, and our team is excited to work with Rubicon TV to champion it—from the first...

The remarkable true story of Gustaf Håkansson, affectionately known as “Stålfarfar” or “Steel Grandpa,” is being brought to the big screen by Strive Stories, the Stockholm-based production company founded by best-selling author Jens Lapidus and award-winning producer Nicklas Wikström Nicastro.

Titled SteelGrandpa, the feature film will be shot in Sweden and helmed by celebrated director Mårten Klingberg (“Off Track”). The script, written by Gudrun Giddings (“The Secret World”) and Cameron Johann (“An American in Austin”), tells the inspiring and humorous tale of Håkansson, who at age 65, defied race officials who barred him from competing in the inaugural Sverigeloppet in 1951 because of his age. Undeterred, he rode the grueling 6-day national cycling tour anyway, without official entry, eventually outlasting many competitors and becoming a beloved folk hero across Sweden.

“This story is full of heart, just the kind of tale we want to champion,” said Nicastro, whose film “A Man Called Ove...

Exclusive: The creators of Snabba Cash and Paradis City are behind the latest legal thriller out of Scandinavia.

Burden of Justice (Försvararna) is set in the world of Sweden’s elite law firms, where desperation, ambition and moral compromise simmer just beneath the surface.

A co-production of Swedish pubcaster Svt, Strive Stories and Film i Väst, the modern Stockholm-set series comes from Snabba Cash writer and author Jens Lapidus and Frans Milisic Wiklund. Nicklas Wikström Nicastro and Caroline Landerberg from Strive Studios, which made both Netflix’s Snabba Cash and Prime Video’s Paradis City, are producing.

Denmark’s Dr, Norway’s Nrk, Finland’s Yle and Iceland’s RÚV are attached alongside Svt as part of the European N12 drama partnership. Dr Sales has landed international rights.

Per the synopsis, Burden of Justice will follow “the high-powered lawyers of Matsson & Markovic as they navigate sweeping legal reforms, shifting public sentiment,...

Pan-Nordic streaming group Viaplay on Thursday said it is pulling its previously announced full-year outlook for 2023. A review of the company’s operations and performance, undertaken by new CEO Jorgen Madsen Lindemann after his appointment last month, indicated that the forward revenue and earnings outlook for Viaplay will be sharply down on previous forecasts, the company said.

Viaplay said there was no change to the Group’s Q2 2023 guidance and did not give further details, saying it would provide an update on its strategy and medium-term outlook in conjunction with the announcement of its Q2 results on July 20.

Lindemann, who used to run Viaplay’s former parent company Mtg, took over at the Nordic media company in June, replacing Anders Jensen, the boss who had led Viaplay’s aggressive expansion into streaming and its push into pricey original productions. The company’s board soured on Jensen after disastrous second-quarter results...

Anders Jensen has stepped down as CEO of Scandinavian media group Viaplay after a lousy quarter that saw advertising sales slump and subscriber figures dip.

Jensen, who is credited with Viaplay’s aggressive move into original production and a streaming-first focus at the Nordic company, is leaving after five years as CEO and will be replaced by Jorgen Madsen Lindemann, the ex-ceo of Viaplay’s former parent company Mtg.

Viaplay announced Jensen’s resignation early Monday morning after it posted second-quarter results that showed the company booked an operating (Ebit) loss of between $23.1 million and $27.7 million (200 million to 300 million Swedish Krona) on expected sales of between 4.5 billion and 4.6 billion Swedish Krona ($415 million to $420 million).

It was bad news all round. Advertising sales dropped double digits, with ad revenues projected to be down between 12 and 16 percent on an organic basis, due to the “sharp and rapid deterioration in the TV and radio advertising markets,...

Viaplay Group CEO Anders Jensen is stepping down immediately amidst an economic downturn that is causing rapid deterioration in the ad market and subscriber churn.

Jensen is departing after five years and will be replaced by Jorgen Madsen Lindemann, the ex-ceo of the nordic TV outfit’s former parent company Mtg.

Delivering the news via an update in the early hours of this morning, Viaplay posted expected Q2 sales of between 4.5Bn ($420M) and 4.6Bn Swedish Krona with negative Ebit of between 250M and 300M Swedish Krona. Advertising revenues are expected to be down between 12% and 16% on an organic basis, due to the “sharp and rapid deterioration in the TV and radio advertising markets,” added the group, with an update on the medium term outlook set to be provided on July 20.

Viaplay posited three factors impacting sales: lower demand in the Nordic and international streaming D2C subscriber markets and...

Exclusive: Snabba Cash author Jens Lapidus and star Alexander Abdallah are combining on a Viaplay TV adaptation of the former’s novel Paradis City.

Abdallah is leading alongside Julia Ragnarsson (End of Summer) and Lapidus, who penned the Stockholm Noir trilogy that includes Snabba Cash, is an exec producer on the six-parter.

Paradis City follows a Home Secretary who delivers a speech in a deprived area and is kidnapped by masked men. Security Service agent Fredrika (Ragnarsson) then turns to Emir (Abdallah), a former Mma fighter facing a life sentence in prison, with an ultimatum – go undercover in Paradis City and find the Home Secretary if you want to see your daughter again. Félice Jankell (The Playlist) and Lancelot Ncube (The Restaurant) co-star with more to be announced in due course.

The Snabba Cash TV adaptation was also penned by Lapidus and Oskar Söderlund and has been one of Netflix’s most popular Scandi titles,...

Everyone is looking over their shoulders in “Snabba Cash.” It’s never for more than a moment or two. But once you start tracking when and how and where the people in this Netflix drama series do it, it’s hard to ignore. “Snabba Cash” is the kind of show that continuously convinces you that doom could be lurking around any corner.

It’s also the kind of show that would be a no-brainer hit with even the slightest push from a streaming service in need of one right now. For a corner of the viewing audience looking for a show to take the TV crime show mantle, “Snabba Cash” has all the tension, patience, and craft that have run through all comparable recent faves. A cross-generational look at big business in Stockholm, drenched in danger and laser-focused on everyone caught in its wake, it’s the kind of show...

Exclusive: Evin Ahmad, who is set to star in Netflix’s Snabba Cash series, has signed with ICM Partners for representation in all areas.

Currently, Ahmad is set to star in the lead role of the new Swedish Netflix Original series Snabba Cash, from acclaimed screenwriter Oskar Söderlund and best-selling author Jens Lapidus, whose Stockholm Noir crime trilogy was adapted into the Snabba Cash or Easy Money feature film franchise starring Joel Kinnaman.

The trilogy, set in Stockholm’s underworld, has been adapted into more than 30 languages. Events in the series will take place ten years after the films, following Leya (Ahmad), a young single mom trying to make it within the startup scene who becomes entangled in the criminal world. The series bows tomorrow on the streamer.

Ahmad is a Swedish and Kurdish actress and writer, who in a short period of time has become one of Sweden’s most talented young actresses.

"Snabba Cash", is the new six-episode 'crime thriller' TV series, based on novels by author Jens Lapidus, set in Stockholm, Sweden, 10 years after events depicted in the "Snabba Cash" ('Easy Money') movie series, starring Evin Ahmad, Alexander Abdallah, Ali Alarik, Olle Sarri, Dada Fungula Bozela, Ayan Ahmed, Khalil Ghazal, Robin Nazari and Felice Jankell, streaming April 7, 2021 on Netflix: 

"...in the criminal undergrounds of Stockholm, people have become more obsessed with status and money. When tech entrepreneur 'Leya' (Evin Ahmad) kick starts her company with laundered money, she finds out there are no shortcuts to the top without paying the price.

"But Leya is determined to beat the odds no matter what the cost. Now when worlds collide, loyalty, friendships and business partners will all be tested in a never-ending quest for easy money..."

Click the images to enlarge...

Screening Monday as part of the competition pack at Canneseries, which runs Oct. 9-14, is “Top Dog.” The Stockholm-set crime thriller is produced by Sweden’s Filmlance, the team behind acclaimed series “Bron” (known in many territories as “The Bridge”), which sold to more than 180 countries.

In “Top Dog,” middle-aged crime-gang member Teddy from Södertälje, a working-class city with a large immigrant community, joins forces with young attorney Emily, who works for an up-market law firm in Stockholm, to investigate the disappearance of the eldest son of a business tycoon.

Teddy, Emily and many of the other lead characters have secrets, which complicate the solving of the mystery, with many twists and turns. Emily is in debt and about to be made homeless; Teddy has a former girlfriend who is a cop, and wants to break away from the life of crime after a lengthy spell in prison.

Josefin Asplund,...

Snabba Cash (Easy Money), the Swedish Netflix original series that is being produced by Sf Studios, is underway in Stockholm.

Evin Ahmad, known from the feature film Dröm Vidare and two Netflix series Quicksand and The Rain season 2, is playing the lead. The show is a reboot of a trilogy of feature films based on the Stockholm Noir books by Jens Lapidus. Nordic major Sf Studios produced the features and is also behind the TV adaptation.

Covid safety procedures being taken on the pic include many team members wearing masks, regular temperature checks, a nurse available on set as well as an appointed coronavirus guard who will ensure people keep distance, and the production team being divided up into zones to avoid unnecessary contact.

Lapidus’ bestselling Stockholm Noir trilogy, set in the city’s underworld, have been adapted into more than 30 languages. Events in the series will take place ten years after the films,...

Paris — AMC’s “The Walking Dead: World Beyond,” Amazon Prime’s “Upload,” and Apple TV’s “Trying” will make their international premieres at the 3rd edition of Canneseries, which will run from March 27 to April 1.

The Riviera-set fest will host tributes to David Hasselhoff (“Baywatch”), “Sharp Object” and “Euphoria” breakout Sydney Sweeney, and “Transparent” star Judith Light, before closing with the world premiere of “The Bureau,” Season 5.

Producer Gale Anne Hurd will lead this year’s jury alongside actors Ncuti Gatwa (“Sex Education”), Camille Cottin (“Call My Agent”) and Katja Herbers (“Westworld”), director Tawfik Abu Wael (“Our Boys”) and rocker Steward Copeland.

Pay-tv service Canal Plus will bring two high-profile French language offerings, launching the final season premiere of their spy thriller “The Bureau” and the series premiere of their hip-hop drama “Validé,” which was co-created by popular local star Franck Gastambide.

Of then ten series in the festival’s highly selective competition,...

Director May el-Toukhy tackles a subject that has not yet been explored and is frightening in the possibilities it reveals to us as women assume positions of power and authority. The troublesome specter of exploitive female sexuality is also elaborated upon in the Dutch Oscar submission, ‘Instinct’.

Two highly developed Western European nations, Denmark and The Netherlands, take female sexuality to extremes here in ways we only saw before as men’s terrain with such films as Last Tango in Paris or In the Realm of the Senses.

My initial reaction to both films was a sort of shame, as if somewhere deep inside of me, I understood the impulse that impelled both these women to venture into forbidden zones of action, but wished it had not depicted it so graphically. It would take a psychiatrist to explain the impulse in human nature that makes us enter dangerous sexual territories.

Netflix is moving into original movies in the Nordic region for the first time. Action thriller “Red Dot” out of Sweden, and “Cadaver” from Norway were announced as Netflix Films at the Stockholm Film Festival on Thursday. The streaming giant also announced that it had scooped the global rights to Danish feature film “Shadows in My Eyes.”

The news comes hot on the heels of Netflix partnering with local players on its first Dutch movie, “The Battle of the Scheldt,” as the Svod giant goes deeper into original film in Europe.

“We are very happy to be taking this exciting step in offering our members in the Nordics more local content, as well as bring more great content from the Nordic region to our global members,” said Lina Brouneus, director of licensing and co-productions for Netflix in Northern Europe.

Sf Studios-produced “Red Dot” is an action thriller following David and Nadja,...

Jens Lapidus’ hit novels will return after a film trilogy, via a series being produced by Sf Studios. Six years after the release of the last part of the movie trilogy, the hit Swedish crime-drama Easy Money (aka Snabba Cash), which is based on Jens Lapidus’ best-selling novels, is returning as an original series for Netflix, produced by Sf Studios. According to the official announcement, the story is set in the milieu of Stockholm’s buzzing underworld ten years after the events depicted in the feature-film franchise. Now, the demand for money and status is stronger than ever, and this leads the entrepreneurial jet set and the criminal underworld to clash, making them more brutal, chaotic and ruthless. The collision of these two worlds will put business partnerships, loyalty and friendships to the test, all set against the backdrop of the everlasting pursuit of easy money. The series is being developed.

Netflix is adapting Scandinavian movie trilogy Snabba Cash (Easy Money) into a six-part series. The Svod service has partnered with screenwriter Oskar Söderlund and author Jens Lapidus on the project.

The series is set in Stockholm ten years after the events depicted in the feature films. It is a buzzing environment where the craving for status and money is stronger than ever. The entrepreneurial jet set as well as the criminal world has become even more brutal, chaotic and ruthless. When these two worlds collide, loyalty, friendships and business partners will all be tested in the never-ending quest for easy money. The films starred The Killing’s Joel Kinnaman.

Snabba Cash is produced by Sf Studios, the original producer of the film trilogy, set in the gritty criminal underground of Stockholm. Oskar Söderlund, the screenwriter behind The Fat and the Angry and Greyzone, has developed the series together with Lapidus,...

Netflix has ordered a six-part original series based on the hit Swedish crime franchise “Snabba Cash” from Sf Studios.

Based on Jens Lapidus’s bestselling novels, the series is set in Stockholm’s gritty criminal underground ten years after the events depicted in the “Snabba Cash” movie trilogy. The society has become even more obsessed with status and money, while the entrepreneurial jet set as well as the criminal worlds have collided.

The show was developed by Oskar Söderlund, the acclaimed screenwriter behind “The Fat and the Angry,” together with Lapidus, a Swedish criminal defense lawyer and author who has sold more than 2.2 million books in Sweden alone.

Lapidus, who also serves as executive producer, said he had “been waiting for an opportunity to continue with ‘Snabba Cash.'” “The stories are still epic but also depict our time in an unfiltered light. It will be amazing,” said Lapidus.

Tesha Crawford,...

A hit Swedish thriller series Snabba Cash —also known as Easy Money —is to get a new lease of life as a Netflix original series.

The story of a young man drawn into the world of crime and "easy money" —based on the novels by bestselling author Jens Lapidus —was turned into a trilogy of hit films. The first Snabba Cash movie, directed by Daniel Epsinosa in 2010, launched the international career of star Joel Kinnaman (RoboCop, Suicide Squad). Kinnaman returned for two Snabba Cash sequels in 2012 and 2013, directed by Babak Najafi and Jens Jonsson, respectively....

Five Scandi shows will be judged for the award.

Five Nordic drama series will compete for the second annual Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize, which will be presented on Jan 31 at the TV Drama Vision conference in Goteborg.

Source: About Premium Content

Deadwind

One drama series apiece from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden is nominated for the award, which comes with a prize of $25,000 (Sek 200,000) for the main writer(s) of the series. The first two episodes of each series are shown at the Goteborg Film Festival.

This year’s nominees are Borderliner from Norway, Deadwind from Finland, The Lawyer from Sweden, Ride Upon The Storm from Denmark, and Stella Blomkvist from Iceland.

This year’s jury includes Swedish acterss Sofia Helin (The Bridge); Walter Iuzzolino, the UK-based TV executive and curator of streaming service Walter Presents; and Finnish journalist Kirpi Uimonen Ballesteros.

Petri Kemppinen, CEO of Nordisk Film & TV Fond, said: “Initiating this prize...

To celebrate the release of Easy Money III: Life Deluxe out on DVD, Blu-ray and Download 20th October 2014, we have a copy on Blu-ray to giveaway courtesy of Icon Film Distribution.

Hollywood’s latest “leading man” discovery Joel Kinnaman (Robocop; The Killing) stars in the explosive final chapter of the hit Nordic Noir trilogy based on the bestselling crime thriller series by Swedish author Jens Lapidus. Easy Money III: Life Deluxe is an intelligent, action-packed finale to one of the best crime thriller trilogies seen in recent years.

Easy Money III: Life Deluxe is available to order on Amazon today: http://amzn.to/Z5S4kE

To win Easy Money III: Life Deluxe on Blu-ray, just answer the following question:

Which of the following films also starred Joel Kinnaman? Was it:

a) Gremlins

b) Back to the Future

c) RoboCop

Email your answer to NerdlyComps@gmail.com, making sure to include your name and address.

Co-pros include English-language Easy Money, Henning Mankell TV series.

Svensk Filmindustri (Sf) and Studiocanal have entered an agreement that includes an all rights, output distribution deal for Sf on all new Studiocanal films in the Nordic market (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland) and the digital distribution by Sf of Studiocanal catalogue titles.

The deal also comprises coproduction based on English-speaking Nordic features and TV-series from Sf properties.

Sf will handle the Nordic markets for the co-productions and Studiocanal will distribute them internationally.

StudioCanal’s upcoming titles to be distributed by Sf include Paddington, Shaun the Sheep, Our Kind of Traitor, Macbeth, Legend and Bigger Splash (Luca Guadagnino’s Untitled Pantelleria).

Two feature co-productions are currently being developed: Easy Money (Snabba Cash), the English-language remake of the Swedish 2010 box office hit, and the Ibiza-set thriller The White Island, to be directed by Jens Jonsson.

Sf and Studiocanal are also developing two TV series. This first is...

Before he brought his enigmatic presence to American audiences in AMC’s The Killing and the recent remake of Robocop, Swedish actor Joel Kinnaman found stardom in Europe thanks to the smash hit Easy Money. The 2010 Swedish crime drama, adapted from a novel by Jens Lapidus, cast Kinnaman as Jw, an intelligent but misguided business student from the wrong side of the tracks who becomes a drug smuggler in order to afford the wealthy lifestyle of his upper-class peers. The diverse group of criminals he gets mixed up with includes Chilean Jorge (Matias Varela), Serbian Mrado (Dragomir Mrsic) and Lebanese Mahmoud (Fares Fares). The first film ends with Jw in prison, but that doesn't prevent him from getting into further trouble in Easy Money: Hard to Kill, the film’s 2012 sequel.

Read more...

Exclusive: Swedish production company announces first English-language projects.

Sweden’s Tre Vänner, producer of the hit Easy Money (Snabba Cash) trilogy, has announced the launch of two international thrillers - the company’s first in the English-language.

They include a thriller from acclaimed Swedish director Jens Jonsson and an English-language remake of the first Easy Money film, the first part in a planned trilogy.

Both projects will be produced by Tre Vänner and Swedish major Svensk Filmindustri, with Svensk handling Scandinavian distribution. The two companies merged in 2013.

Jonsson’s Ibiza-set thriller The White Island centres around two female characters.

The film-maker, who won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2008 with The King Of Ping Pong and also directed Snabba Cash III - Life Deluxe, the third film in the trilogy, co-wrote the script with Matthew Ian Cirulnick based on extensive research.

“We will take the audience behind the curtain of Europe’s wildest party island,” producer...

Stars: Joel Kinnaman, Matias Varela, Dragomir Mrsic, Fares Fares, Madeleine Martin | Written by Maria Karlsson | Directed by Babak Najafi

Let me start by saying “Nordic Noir” has a lot to answer for… Desperate to ride the popularity of Norwegian dramas such The Killing, Borgen and The Bridge, UK distributors are seemingly snatching up any and all crime dramas that emanate from the region; and obviously not all can be the next The Killing… Just look at Easy Money 2 (aka Snabba Cash II in it’s original Swedish).

Foregoing rich storytelling and an engrossing plot, director Babak Najafi instead ups the violence and action for this sequel to the 2010 original. Once again starring Joel Kinnaman (Robocop) and based upon the novels by Jens Lapidus, Easy Money 2 follows Jw (Kinnaman), the promising business student who became an organized coke smuggler in Easy Money, is serving hard time in prison and struggling to...

Easy Money is a smart, affecting, slow burn of a movie, a spectacular example of Nordic noir. The sequel suffers by comparison, though. I’m “biast” (pro): have a soft spot for Joel Kinnaman

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

I have not read the source material

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

If you’ve enjoyed the new remake of RoboCop — or even if you didn’t — you can’t go wrong by checking out newly minted Hollywood leading man Joel Kinnaman in a fantastic film made on his home turf of Sweden. (Were you fooled by Kinnaman’s flawless American accent? He’s not American.) Easy Money, from 2010, had only a small release in North America in 2012, unsurprising given the general lack of interest by U.S. audiences in reading subtitles. Its similarly limited release in the U.K. in 2013 is surprising, however, because...

TrustNordisk will kick off presales on the fantasy-adventure film in Berlin.

The Shamer’s Daughter, based on the first book in Lene Kaaberbøl’s bestselling series The Shamer Chronicles, is to be adapted as a feature film.

TrustNordisk will kick off presales on the fantasy-adventure film at the European Film Market (Efm) at the upcoming Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 6-16).

The screenplay will be written by Oscar-winner Anders Thomas Jensen, who wrote the script for Academy Award winner In a Better World.

The feature will be directed Danish filmmaker Kenneth Kainz (Pure Hearts).

The Scandinavian cast will be led by Peter Plaugborg (The Keeper of Lost Causes), Jakob Oftebro (Kon-Tiki), Søren Malling (A Hijacking), Maria Bonnevie (A Second Chance), Stina Ekblad (Love Is All You Need) and Allan Hyde (True Blood).

Shooting is set to begin on Feb 27.

The story centres on “the Shamer’s daughter”, Dina, who has inherited her mother’s supernatural ability. She can...

Slash-happy Wolverine cuts out the thrills, but Easy Money is a satisfying slice of Scandi-drama

The Marvel brand is rather testing its own name with the sheer ubiquity of its comic-book adaptations; with a new one seemingly hitting our screens every month, maintaining one's sense of awe becomes rather difficult. It's more of a challenge still when they're as listless as The Wolverine (Fox, 12) – or so one would like to think, though summer box-office figures suggested fans' enthusiasm for Marvel's most hirsute superhero has yet to wane.

Hugh Jackman's clearly has though. Shedding the gusto (and only some of the body hair) of his Jean Valjean earlier this year, the Australian is on indifferently chesty form in his sixth outing as burly mutant fighter Logan. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) attempted to tell his back story, but proved so unpopular that a second go was deemed necessary.

Enter the confusingly discontinuous The Wolverine,...

Cinedigm has acquired all North American rights from TrustNordisk to Easy Money: Hard To Kill and Easy Money: Life Deluxe based on the bestselling books by Jens Lapidus. Separately, FilmBuff has acquired Someone Marry Barry.

The second and third instalments in the Easy Money Stockholm noir trilogy starring Joel Kinnaman that have drawn more than 1.2m Swedish theatre-goers.

Martin Scorsese presented the first episode to Us audiences last year and a remake is in development at Warner Bros with Zac Efron attached to star.

Cinedigm has set both films for release in 2014 across all platforms.

Fredrik Wikström Nicastro produced the films for Swedish production company Tre Vänner in co-production with Film i Väst, TV broadcaster Svt, Nordisk Film, Nordsvensk Filmunderhållning, Hobohm Brothers, Fantefilm, Network Movie & Zdf/Arte.

Production support comes from The Swedish Film Institute, The Norwegian Film Institute, Nordic film and TV fund in co-operation with C-more. Nordisk Film is...

Swedish deal will see Tre Vänner boss Jonas Fors replace Rasmus Ramstad as Svensk CEO.

Swedish major Svensk Filmindustri is to acquire 90% of Tre Vänner, the Stockholm-based production outfit behind the smash hit Snabba Cash franchise.

As part of the deal, Tre Vänner managing director Jonas Fors will become CEO of Svensk from Oct 1, replacing Rasmus Ramstad.

The agreement unifies a film and TV conglomerate founded in 1919, with subsidiaries in Norway, Denmark, and Finland, and a production company set up in 1995 by three scriptwriters, with the aim to make films with a local and Nordic flavour as well as international potential.

Tre Vänner’s latest feature, Jens Jonsson thriller Livet De Luxe (Life Deluxe) concludes the Snabba cash (Easy Money) trilogy from author Jens Lapidus’ Stockholm Noir series. It opened last week at the top of the Swedish box office with 85,000 admissions over the weekend.

“Svensk is a well-known brand with a catalogue of more than 1,200 films...

Swedish deal will see Tre Vänner boss Jonas Fors replace Rasmus Ramstad as Svensk CEO.

Swedish major Svensk Filmindustri is to acquire 90% of Tre Vänner, the Stockholm-based production outfit behind the smash hit Snabba Cash franchise.

As part of the deal, Tre Vänner managing director Jonas Fors will become CEO of Svensk from Oct 1, replacing Rasmus Ramstad.

The agreement unifies a film and TV conglomerate founded in 1919, with subsidiaries in Norway, Denmark, and Finland, and a production company set up in 1995 by three scriptwriters, with the aim to make films with a local and Nordic flavour as well as international potential.

Tre Vänner’s latest feature, Jens Jonsson thriller Livet De Luxe (Life Deluxe) concludes the Snabba cash (Easy Money) trilogy from author Jens Lapidus’ Stockholm Noir series. It opened last week at the top of the Swedish box office with 85,000 admissions over the weekend.

“Svensk is a well-known brand with a catalogue of more than 1,200 films...

Swedish production powerhouse also planning autumn shoot for heist film Mastermind.

Swedish outfit Tre Vänner, producer of the hit Snabba Cash trilogy, will next shoot The Boy With The Golden Trousers, a family adventure movie based on the classic Swedish novel.

The story of a young boy who finds a pair of trousers with magical money-giving pockets, the film will start shooting in Sweden in early September with Ella Lemhagen (Patrik, Age 1.5) directing. It is a Swedish-Danish co-production with Cosmo Film.

In early October Tre Vänner will also start production on Mastermind, a heist film about a criminal about to pull off a big bank job with some of the best criminals in Sweden. The director and cast will be announced shortly.

“Genre-wise it’s more kind of Headhunters than Snabba Cash,” Tre Vänner’s head of film Fredrik Wikström Nicastro told ScreenDaily at Gothenburg’s Way Out West festival, where [link=tt...

Double-crossing and muddied morality are rife in a relentless Swedish crime thriller brought to the UK by fan Martin Scorsese

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I've been going to Sweden regularly for more than 50 years now, observing its daily life and its movies. Back in 1959, the year I first went there, the influential Martin Beck police procedural novels of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö had not yet appeared, and no one could have foreseen a thriller as violent and disturbing as Easy Money, directed by a Swede of Chilean stock and educated at Denmark's film school. Naturally it's being remade in the States.

Historically Scandinavia has been shaped by its harsh climate, an innate stoicism, the stern Lutheran branch of Protestantism and two centuries of immigration. The area was among the first to embrace the cinema early in the 20th century and, most especially through Carl Dreyer...

To mark the release of the movie Easy Money on 19th July, we’ve got three copies of the book by to give away. The film is directed by Daniél Espinosa, stars Joel Kinnaman, Matias Padin Varela, Dragomir Mrsic and is Produced by Martin Scorsese.

Jw (Joel Kinnaman) is a poor student who lives a double life within the wealthy Stockholm elite. He falls in love with an upper class girl and is soon lured into a world of crime. Jorge is a fugitive on the run from the police and the Yugoslavian mafia. His plan; import a massive cargo of coke and then disappear for good. Yugoslavian hitman Mrado is trying hard to find Jorge but his criminal life takes a turn when he is forced to take care of his young daughter. While Jw starts a journey into the dark world of organized crime, he brings together the...

One of the highlights of this weekend's Nordicana Festival in London - celebrating all things dramatic and Scandinavian - was the first UK screening of 'Easy Money'.

This is the latest big screen offering of Nordic Noir, with no less a champion than exec producer Martin Scorsese, andHuffPostUK is pleased to host the exclusive trailer - Watch Above.

Here's the official poster, too - look familiar?

This Nordic relation to Scorsese's own masterpiece 'Goodfellas' tells the tale of Jw (Joel Kinnaman - The Killing, Safe House), a poor student living a double life among the wealthy elite in Stockholm. Using increasingly illicit means to fund his exclusive lifestyle, he hits on a chance to score ‘easy money’ through selling cocaine. As Jw enters the dark world of organised crime, his fate entwines with that of Jorge (Matias Padin Varela), a drug dealer on the run, and...

Before he became RoboCop it was Swedish crime film Snabba Cash (Easy Money) that launched Joel Kinnaman to stardom. Immediately snapped up by The Weinstein Company and prepped for Us remake - reportedly with Zac Efron taking on the Kinnaman role - it took rather a long time for the first Snabba Cash to hit Us release but the balance that film strikes between action and riveting character work remains impressive today. The first Snabba Cash also happened to earn a great big bag of money throughout Europe which has meant - of course - sequels. Based on a trilogy of novels by Jens Lapidus, a second film followed quickly after the first and now a third - titled Life Deluxe - is about to...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

The Killing star Joel Kinnaman is featured in his breakout role in our exclusive clip from Easy Money, debuting on DVD March 26th. Before he played Stephen Holder on The Killing and nabbed the title role in RoboCop, Joel Kinnaman drew critical raves for his performance as Jw, a business student who gets lured into a life of crime in this international thriller. This exclusive scene shows Jw smoking on a rooftop with a friend, as they discuss the relationships in their lives.

Easy Money - Exclusive "Rookie"

Directed by Daniel Espinosa (Safe House), Easy Money is a Swedish crime thriller based on the international best-selling novel Snabba Cash by Jens Lapidus. Lower-class business student Jw (Joel Kinnaman from AMC's The Killing) falls in love with a sexy heiress while living a double life mingling with Stockholm's wealthy elite. To keep up the facade of his lifestyle, he's lured into a world of crime.

Thanks to Steig Larson, there’s a perceived appetite for all things Swedish so some of the more stylish or interesting books and films are coming over here in drips and drabs. The most recent import is Easy Money, a film that benefits from a moral gravity underlying the crime tale. Adapted by director Daniel Espinosa from Jens Lapidus’ 2006 novel Snabba Cash, it tells the story of a student, Jw (Joel Kinnaman), who falls for Sophie (Lisa Henni ), an heiress so turns to crime in order to keep up with her lavish lifestyle. You just know things are going to spiral out of control this point on so the key for the production is keeping us in plausible suspense and entertained. Sure enough, he crosses the Serbian mafia and gets embroiled with Jorge (Matias Padin Varela), a fugitive from the mob. It’s dark and violent and messy.

While released...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: March 26, 2013

Price: DVD $24.98

Studio: Anchor Bay

The 2010 Swedish crime thriller film Easy Money is based on the 2006 international best-selling novel Snabba Cash, lawyer-turned-author Jens Lapidus’s first entry in his popular “Stockholm Noir” trilogy.

In the movie, lower-class business student Jw (Joel Kinnaman, TV’s The Killing) falls in love with a sexy heiress while living a double life mingling with Stockholm’s wealthy elite. To keep up the facade of his lifestyle, he’s lured into a world of crime. Jorge (Matias Varela) is a petty fugitive on the run from both the police and Serbian mafia. He hopes that brokering a massive drug deal will allow him to escape for good. Mafia enforcer Mrado (Dragomir Mrsic) is on the hunt for Jorge, but his efforts are complicated when he’s unexpectedly saddled with caring for his young daughter. As Jw’s journey ventures...

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Daniél Espinosa’s adaptation of the first in Jens Lapidus’s best-selling “Stockholm Noir” trilogy, Easy Money, revolves around three characters; Jorge (Matias Varela), an escaped convict looking to revenge those who snitched on him and make one last coke deal before skipping town; Mrado (Dragomir Mrsic), a hitman tasked with taking Jorge down, while having to look after his young daughter; and Jw (Joel Kinnaman), a slick, good-looking young man who socialises with Sweden’s wealthy elite, but is in fact a fraud, a broke student, living in digs, and working as a taxi driver to maintain his image.

Through and through, this is a slickly assembled crime drama, probing deep into timely themes in the wake of the recession – and was released natively in 2010, during the dark heart of the decline – intersecting with Jw’s own trepidations, as he notices a beautiful, wealthy young...

Joel Kinnaman found himself on the brink of a Hollywood career in 2010 with Easy Money (Snabba Cash). In the Swedish thriller based on the first book of Jens Lapidus' "The Stockholm Noir trilogy," Kinnaman plays Jw, a college student passing himself off as a wealthy society guy in hopes of making the right connections for his future but instead ends up a drug smuggler in an effort to keep up appearances of his wealthy lifestyle. [Continued ...]...

This year’s BFI London Film Festival offers several new films based on books, reflecting a common trend in modern cinema and the recent film industry and proving that intelligent story-telling is something that should transcend format and translate through alternate medium. In some cases this is just loosely inspired by, where others can be straight page to screen interpretations… Here’s some of the highlights:

Some of the key texts that follow this trend are Salman Rushdie’s debut screenplay for the European premiere adaptation of his Booker prize winning novel; Midnight’s Children. Directed by Deepa Mehta, this Official Competition film is a riveting allegorical saga that parallels the dramatic upheavals in one’s family history with the events that would define contemporary India. Salman Rushdie is conducting a Q&A on this and his career as a renowned cinephile on 15th October.

Grassroots is director Stephen Gyllenhaal...

It’s hard not to miss The Sopranos, even five years after one of the most publicized and most disappointing series’ endings ever, you felt a closeness and a sympathy towards them because it made your family seemed just a kilo less dysfunctional.

With the new film Easy Money Director Daniel Espinosa replaces a bit of bada-bing with class warfare, thanks to the international wise guy film.

The Swedish import (with the cooler name Snabba Cash) arrives in North America after filling box office coffers in its Norwegian homeland. A multi-cultural pursuit of happiness thanks to cocaine begins with Jonah “Jw” Westlund (Joel Kinnaman), a finance student by day and cab driver by night. Jw has more than his next fare in mind as he wants to escape his lower middle class past and starving student present. Opportunity comes knocking when his cab bosses offer him a chance to nurse...

Editor’s Note: On July 11, 2012, Easy Money opened its limited release in the United States. In honor of that release, we’re republishing Allison Loring’s review from the 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival. She was quite fond of it, which leads us to believe that you should read the review and perhaps even see the movie… Based on the novel “Snabba Cash” (also the film’s original title) by Swedish author Jens Lapidus, Easy Money tells the twisted tale of what it really means to make “easy money” and the ramifications of those supposed shortcuts. The film opens with Jorge (Matias Varela) staging a daring prison break (despite only having a year left on his sentence), and subsequently falling right back into the world of drugs and violence that clearly got him locked up in the first place. But a move like that never comes without consequences, as we meet Mrado (Dragomir Mrsic) who has suddenly found...

Easy Money (aka Snabba Cash), from director Daniel Espinosa (Safe House), is a Swedish crime thriller based on the international best-selling novel by Jens Lapidus, now being presented in the U.S. by Martin Scorsese. The story follows Jw (Joel Kinnaman), a lower-class business student living a double life with Stockholm’s wealthy elite. To keep up his lifestyle, he finds himself in deep with the dark world of organized crime and in an intensely dramatic struggle for life and death. For the film’s press day, Collider spoke to actor Joel Kinnaman (The Killing), in both a roundtable and a 1-on-1 interview, about what it’s like to finally have U.S. audiences get to see the 2010 film, his desire to tell stories in the moral grey zone, how he finally ended up landing the role of Jw, and what he finds most appealing about acting. He also talked...

Honor Among Thieves: Espinosa’s Crime Thriller a Refreshing Genre Flick

Lighting up the festival circuit in 2010, Daniel Espinosa’s Easy Money finally lands stateside this summer, premiering after his 2012 English language debut, Safe House. Based on the first of a series of crime novels by Jens Lapidus, this Sweden set amoral tale of elitism, drugs, and power lust, may be one of the best thrillers centered on organized crime in years.

Three parallel storylines kick off with the daring prison escape of Jorge (Matias Varela), curiously breaking out with only a year left of his sentence, turning to but turned away from his sister, who’s several months pregnant. Then there’s Mrado (Dragomir Mrsic), a Serbian gangster, suddenly embroiled in his own paternal issues when his ex-wife disappears and leaves him with his young daughter, now assigned to track down the escaped Jorge, who happens to have...

Having a slow Tuesday? We’ve got some trailers guaranteed to pass the time. Read on for all the preview-y goodness. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on in this new clip for Safe House director Daniel Espinosa’s Easy Money, but the trailer has enough action and drama that we’re interested anyway. Based on the best-selling novel by Jens Lapidus (entitled Snabba Cash), Espinosa’s film stars Joel Kinnaman as a middle-class business student who gets sucked into the criminal underworld after he falls head over heels for an heiress. He somehow winds up involved in a drug deal that involves the Serbian mafia and a dangerous hitman. Much action apparently ensues. Easy Money lands in theaters on July 11th – take a peek at the...

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With director Daniel Espinosa scoring a hit with Safe House and star Joel Kinnaman all over the film news as the new RoboCop the duo's stellar Swedish crime film Easy Money (Snabba Cash) has finally been sprung from The Weinstein Company vault and will hit Us screens on July 11th. It probably didn't hurt that they got Martin Scorsese to endorse it, too.Directed by Daniel Espinosa (Safe House), Easy Money is a Swedish crime thriller based on the international best-selling novel Snabba Cash by Jens Lapidus. Lower-class business student Jw (Joel Kinnaman from AMC's 'The Killing') falls in love with a sexy heiress while living a double life mingling with Stockholm's wealthy elite. To keep up the facade of his lifestyle, he's lured into...

A new trailer for Easy Money has debuted. The film stars Joel Kinnaman as a lower-class business student who goes to extreme lengths to maintain his new position in a world of the rich and privileged. The film was released in Sweden in 2010 as Snabba Cash, and is based on the international bestselling novel by Jens Lapidus. Kinnaman is best known as the star of the AMC's (more)...

Today we have the first U.S. trailer for Daniel Espinosa‘s Easy Money. I say “U.S.” trailer because the film has been out since 2010, though not in North America. The Swedish crime drama was acquired a while ago by The Weinstein Company and after holding onto it for a bit, they have finally decided to release it. It makes sense too, seeing as the film’s star, Joel Kinnaman, is building a name for himself with roles in AMC’s The Killing and the upcoming RoboCop remake.

Plus, director Daniel Espinosa has some exposure in North America now as well, after having directed Universal’s Safe House. Oh, and finally, somehow they managed to get Martin Scorsese to lend his name to the project, which can never hurt.

As for the film itself, I think it looks quite good. Though the only reason that this is getting a...