Dr Caitriona Noonan (Chair), with Anne Blohm Rudbæk, Dr Eva Novrup Redvall, and Prof. Anne Marit Waade
 

‘The World is Round’ - Challenges and Opportunities for TV in Small Nations

 
It may be true that ‘TV tells stories for a nation about a nation’, but this event also showed that Nordic drama producers are going beyond ‘noir’ to find international as well as local audiences.  The RTS Wales Centre discussion on the 16th November, held at The ATRiuM in partnership with The Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations, followed a daytime conference that explored issues surrounding television production in small nations.

Anne Blohm Rudbæk, from SF Film Productions, and Eva Novrup Redvall, from the University of Copenhagen, said that success on the world stage helps sustain domestic output.  The success of Nordic Noir in the UK, with series such as The Killing, Borgen, and The Bridge, has challenged the accepted wisdom that English speaking audiences won't accept content in other languages.  The success of these dramas inspired S4C to commission Y Gwyll/Hinterland, a back-to-back English and Welsh language co-production, which travelled to BBC Wales, BBC 4, DR Denmark, and eventually to Netflix.

But the success of Nordic Noir is no fluke.  Danish producers aimed high and moved to using writers’ rooms, developed new talent and produced longer runs.  It paid off and they picked up an Emmy or two along the way.  But now they want to show the real Denmark.  The latest series, Norskov, is set in a provincial town with its own law and order problems, including a thriving drugs scene.  But the series also depicts a community on the rise.  In the opening scene the town's Mayor says, "Some people say Norskov is on the edge.  I guess they don't know the world is round."  It is a suitable metaphor for the place of small nations in today's global TV markets.