Johan Fasting, Silje Storstein and Kristin Grue, writers of Power Play, are the recipients of the 2024 Nordic drama screenwriting award. This was announced at an award ceremony during Göteborg Film Festival’s TV Drama Vision on January 30.
For the eighth consecutive year, the award for outstanding writing of a Nordic drama series was handed out at TV Drama Vision. The NOK 200 000 (approx € 20 000) award, funded by Nordisk Film & TV Fond, was awarded to the main writers of the series.
Jury statement: “Choosing a winner from a diverse array of such high-quality drama has been both a privilege and a pleasure for us, the jury. The nominees have been diverse: from politics to human despair, from love for a mother to a tragic disaster at sea, from families to co-workers to friends and enemies. But the series that captured us the most was the one that managed to embrace seemingly dull historical facts with humour and playfulness, and that depicted an epoch of political history with all nuances of human idealism and flaws. Makta – Power Play stayed loyal to its essence of truth, lie and poor memory!”
This year’s jury consisted of Vinca Wiedemann, editor, producer and screenwriter, Denmark; Joel Spira, actor, Sweden; Kateryna Vyshnevska, producer, Ukraine; Charlotte Winberg, journalist and critic, Finland.
The year is 1974. The setting is 2023. Power Play is a never before seen drama about a crucial turning point in political history based on truth, lies and bad memory. When the Labour Party is torn apart by a disastrous feud between the Chairman and the Prime Minister, the young idealist Gro Harlem Brundtland is unwillingly pulled into the tactics and scheming of modern politics. As the government implodes around her, Gro learns to play her own games of power, climbing the ranks until she is left the last woman standing in the ruins of Labour’s celebrated social democracy.
Earlier winners of the coveted Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize were Norway’s Kenneth Karlstad for the series Kids in Crime (2023), Iceland’s Gísli Örn Gardarsson, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson and Mikael Torfason for the crime series Blackport (2022), Denmark’s Maja Jul Larsen for the drama Cry Wolf (2021) Norway’s Sara Johnsen for the drama 22 July (2020), Finland’s Merja Aakko and Mika Ronkainen for the crime series All the Sins (2019), Denmark’s Adam Price for the drama Ride Upon the Storm (2018), and Norway’s Mette. M. Bølstad and Stephen Uhlander for the political drama Nobel (2017).
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