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Netflix barnstormer “Secrets We Keep,” Canneseries top winner “A Better Man” and “Vignis,” directed by “The Witcher” star Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, will do battle for the 2026 Nordic Series Script Award, the Göteborg Film Festival’s weightiest industry award.
Also making the shortlist cut, announced Thursday, is “My Brother,” the second Nordic Script Award nomination in three years for Denmark’s Karin Arrhenius, and Finland’s “Queen of Fucking Everything,” from former actor Tiina Lymi who burnished her writer-director credentials with Góteborg-selected feature with “Stormskerry Maja.”
Presented by the Nordisk Film & TV Fond, in partnership with Sweden’s Göteborg Film Festival, the Script Award promotes series writers from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland, carrying a cash prize of NOK 200,000 ($19,800).
In the past, its five-title shortlist has often mixed established and on-the-rise creators, such as its 2025 winner, emerging scribe Pelle Rådström behind the sensational “Pressure Point.”
For 2026, however, the Award simply highlights the main writer or writers talent behind five of the biggest Nordic drama series hits premiered in 2025. That’s saying something, given Scandinavian series’ ability to command audiences at home and abroad.
The portrait-thriller of a well-heeled woman faced to rethink her woolly liberal platitudes, Denmark’s “Secrets We Keep,’ written by Ingeborg Topsøe, proved one of Netflix’s three biggest non-English series over Jan.-Sept 2025, scoring 35 million views, only bettered by “The Squid Game” Season 3 (122 million views) and Germany’s “Cassandra” (36 million).
Created by Thomas Seeberg Torjussen (“Zombielars”), Norway’s “A Better Man,” sold by Beta Film, won Canneseries best series and performance (Anders Baasmo, “Kon-Tiki”) prizes in April, then scored best international series and the Audience Award at November Barcelona’s Serielizados.
Written by Ágústa M Ólafsdóttir and Björg Magnúsdóttir (“The Minister”), helmed by Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, King Eisin in “The Witcher,” and produced by Vesturport, behind Series Mania top prizewinner “Blackport,” “Vigdis” scored a 60% market share for Icelandic public broadcaster RUV from a Jan. 1 2025 bow.
“Queen of Fucking Everything,” an original series from Finnish public broadcaster YLE, has often been billed as Finland’s “Breaking Bad.” Produced and sold by Rabbit Films, behind Disney+’s “Mobile 101,” sold well to New8 European broadcasting partners ZDF (Germany), NPO (Netherlands), VRT (Belgium), SVT (Sweden), NRK (Norway) and RUV (Iceland). It also delivered Yle’s biggest domestic series first week ratings for several years.
From “The Bridge” and “Caliphate” producer Filmlance International, part of Banijay Entertainment, and sold by TrustNordisk “My Brother” is a big swing by Swedish pubcaster SVT, bowing Dec. 26 on Swedish state TV SVT to 1.5 million views, more than a tenth of Sweden’s population.
Directed by Sanna Lenken (“Thin Blue Line,” “Pressure Point”) it is written by Arrhenius, increasingly renowned after “Rebecca Martinsson” (2017-20) and “Blackwater,” up for the Nordic Series Script Award in 2023 and also a Series Mania International Panorama best series winner.
“Nordisk Film & TV Fond daily celebrates the excellence of Nordic drama quality through our top-financing schemes. Since no productions happen without the visions and skills of Nordic creators and writers, we yearly want to shed an extra spotlight on the talents behind outstanding drama series, one from each Nordic country,” said Nordisk Film & TV Fond CEO Liselott Forsman.
“We’re proud to once again celebrate some of the most talented screenwriters from the Nordics,” added Cia Edström, head of Göteborg’s TV Drama Vision, its TV forum and market. “The nominated series for 2026 vary in tone and style, but they share a common strength: bold, compelling storytelling that offers hope for the future of drama in the Nordics.”
The jury for the Nordic Series Script Award is Norwegian actor Agnes Kittelsen; Nanna Frank Rasmussen, a journalist, from Denmark and Henning Kamm, an executive producer and managing director at Real Film Berlin.
The winners of the Nordic Series Awards will be announced at a ceremony on Jan. 27. A second prize, the Creative Courage Award,celebrating the producer and commissioner of a series that boldly pushes creative boundaries and embraces innovation, will also be announced at the ceremony.
A closer look at the series:
“A Better Man,”
Norway, 4 x 50 min
Nominated writer: Thomas Seeberg Torjussen
Broadcaster: NRK
Produced by: Maipo Film; produced by Christian Fredrik Martin, Synnøve Hørsdal; director: Seeberg Torjussen; co-Director: Gjyljeta Berisha; sales: Beta Film
A misogynist internet troll, Tom, who is outed. Disguised as a woman to avoid further persecution, he becomes a better man, finding a sense of self-respect as he treads a rocky road to redemption. Tackling three burning issues of the modern age – internet trolling, the cancel culture and masculinity – “A Better Man” manages to give an explanation for trolls and suggest how they can stop and wraps this is an engrossing, affecting narrative. That’s a large achievement demanding a nuanced performance from lead Anders Baasmo which takes in two physical transformations and a hard-won spiritual makeover.
“My Brother,” (“Jag for ner till bror”)
Sweden, 4 x 45 min
Nominated writer: Karin Arrhenius
Broadcaster: SVT
Produced by: Filmlance International; producer: Anna Wallmark; director: Sanna Lenken; sales: Nordisk Film Danmark, TrustNordisk
Arrhenius adapts the first novel by Karin Smirnoff, who shot to fame when she was invited to write a new book in Stieg Larssen’s “Millennium” novel series. If Lisbeth Salander is dark, the story of Jana Kippo in “My Brother” is even darker, teased as she returns home to remote Smalånger to save her twin brother, drinking himself to death after heartbreak. Gradually, however, she confronts her own raw story of ghastly abuse. Intense, often brutal, distinguished by three lead performances led by Amanda Jansson as Jana who just doesn’t take shit as the series delivers a scathing put-down of small town community hearsay and heartlessness.
Jana and John, played by Amanda Jansson & Jakob Öhrman, in ‘My Brother’ Courtesy of Saga Berlin, SVT
“Queen of F*cking Everything,”
Finland, 6 x 50 min
Nominated writer: Tiina Lymi
Broadcaster: Yle
Produced by: Rabbit Films, producer: Minna Haapkylä; director: Tiina Lymi; sales: Rabbit Films
Linda, a real estate sales whizz living in the lap of luxury, wakes up one day with her hubby missing and a $3 million debt. She resorts to anything – trading cocaine to the Costa del Sol mob, becoming a Shakespeare sonnet-quoting drug kingpin’s lover, even murder – to keep her lifestyle. Written-directed by Lymi (“Stormskerry Maja”), a drama comedy which develops a distinctly dark thriller edge from Episode 3, powering a parable of a woman who reaps revenge on a world she’s convinced has never loved her, until she achieves the work’s titular status; and social status be damned.
“Secrets We Keep,”
Denmark, 6 x 30-40 min
Nominated writer: Ingeborg Topsøe
Co-writers: Ina Bruhn, Mads Tafdrup
Broadcaster: Netflix
Produced by: Uma Film; producer: Claudia Saginario: director: Per Fly; sales: Netflix
Set in North Zealand, a Copenhagen riviera of white stone mansions, au-pair Ruby disappears, having begged neighbor Cecilie for help. Prime suspects are Rasmus, a smarmy big shot or his son, 15, who drone-cams Cecilie having sex. A mystery thriller packed with social observance – on noblesse-oblige privilege and its economics, as well as parenting, racism and gender violence – “Secrets We Keep” is sumptuously shot by Per Fly (“Follow the Money”), layering further social sarcasm on a tight, tense social-issue mystery thriller written by Topsøe, who impressed with Milad Alami’s “The Charmer,” building to Fly’s majestic final shot, loaded with the protagonist’s new-found cognizance of her own social horror.
“Vigdis,” (Vigdís)
Iceland, 4 x 60 min
Nominated writers: Ágústa M. Ólafsdóttir and Björg Magnúsdóttir
Broadcaster: RÚV
Produced by: Vesturport, Vigdís Production; producer: Rakel Garðarsdóttir; directors: Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, Tinna Hrafnsdóttir; sales: Reinvent Yellow International Sales
A four-part bio of Vigdis Finnbogadóttir, who became in 1980 the first woman in the world to be democratically elected as their country’s president and the longest-serving elected female head of state in history. Kicking off at the televised presidential debate in 1980, the series traces her origins from a secondary school student in WWII Iceland riled by the era’s manosphere through life vicissitudes – miscarriage, divorce, a years’ long battle to adopt. What’s so impressive, however, is how “Vigdis” locates her driving passions – her determination, for instance, to make her parents proud of her after early family tragedy – sparking large emotional payoff in a moving finale.
English (US) ·