The Nordic Film Days have a long and storied tradition in Lübeck, and from 3-7 November, over 130 films from Scandinavia and the Baltic region were presented. Caroline Cowan’s praised feature film Eva & Adam received the Children’s Jury Award, with the following motivation: “One film really won us over. We thought it was very appropriate for our age group and the young actors were totally believable. It was a tender and funny film that also spoke to the subject of animal welfare.”

The Swedish rising star screenwriter Sissela Nelander has a background in writing for theatre and web series. She has a Bachelor in Literary Studies and also attended the Literary Composition program at the renowned HDK-Valand-Academy of Art and Design. 

In 2019 Nelander’s play Hymn till Persefone was performed at the Paradiso Festival at Turteatern, and her subsequent production GUNNARMATERIALET saw its premiere in 2020 at the Arrival project in Gothenburg. 

Together with her comedy group Oskönheter she co-created and wrote the web series Kollektivet, working with the production company ENT. Nelander has also, together with a script group, developed a TV series for the production company Splay with support from SFI. 

Nelander is currently writing the screenplay for the adaptation of a hit Swedish novel, more details to be released soon. 

The second season of Exit, Øystein Karlsen’s runaway success series, has been nominated for the prestigious C21 International Drama Awards in the ‘Best Returning Series’ category, alongside gigantic series like The Crown and La Casa de Papel, productions with around 100 million dollars more in budget than Exit. The other nominees in this category are Line of Duty, Baptiste and The Good Fight.

The winners will be announced at the International Drama Awards Ceremony in London on December 2^nd.

Anders Weidemann is attached to adapt Thumbs, a live-action drama based on the bestselling graphic novel written by Sean Lewis with art by Hayden Sherman. Weidemann will write the adaptation of the story, which follows 17-year-old Charlie “Thumbs” James, gamer and social outsider, who enters an esports tournament hoping to win a scholarship from tech billionaire Adrien Camus’ gamer academy so he can get his ticket out of his neighborhood. But soon he finds himself fighting real life-and-death battles in a covert war between Camus’ teenage army and a neo-fascist anti-tech movement that is about to take over the U.S.

Thumbs is one of two projects on the initial development slate of McFarlane Film’s just launched TV production unit, which will be overseen by Todd McFarlane, the comic book creator behind Spawn, and his President of Television, Sean Canino.

Weidemann, McFarlane and Canino will executive produce Thumbs, along with Allard Cantor and Jarrod Murray through Epicenter, with Sean Lewis on-board as a producer.

Please click the “read more” button below to read the article in Deadline Hollywood.