Elisa Viihde Orders Original Psychological Thriller

The Finnish streamer Elisa Viihde has commissioned Man in Room 301, to be produced by Warner Bros. Television Finland and Wall to Wall Media.

The six-part psychological thriller is written by the U.K.’s Kate Ashfield and directed by Finland’s Mikko Kuparinen. Set in Greece and Finland, the series tells the story of the Kurtti family, whose lives irrevocably change one fateful night and the secrets of that evening start to unravel on a family vacation years later.

The cast includes Antti Virmavirta (The Other Side of Hope) and Kaija Pakarinen (Devil’s Bride, Love and Fury) as the parents; Jussi Vatanen (Lapland Odyssey 3, The Unknown Soldier) and Andrei Alén (Rig 45, The Unknown Soldier) as the grown-up children and Leena Pöysti (Laugh or Die, Roba) and Kreeta Salminen (All the Sins) as their wives.

APC Studios is distributing internationally.

Director Mikko Kuparinen said: “It is a privilege to take on Kate Ashfield’s intelligent script, that will certainly challenge and captivate viewers. Man in Room 301 takes place in a Greek holiday resort and at the family’s summer cottage. It’s in this idyllic setting that the Kurtti family end up experiencing the worst days of their lives. Not many psychological thrillers have been made in Finland and we were able to get some of the best actors from the country join our cast. We have what it takes to create a completely new kind of series with international collaboration.”

Ashfield added: “This was a unique experience to create an original series for Finland—to delve into another culture and write about universal themes involving a family with their own secrets whilst at the same time exploring the similarities and differences we have. In the end, experiencing the cultural differences became one of the biggest joys of the whole job as I could never quite foresee the ideas and notes that would come back to us from Finland.”

Ani Korpela, Elisa Viihde’s head of content, commented: “In a short period of time, Elisa Viihde has grown into one of the most important makers of original series in Finland, and its these shows that are becoming our most popular content. It is wonderful to be developing Finnish drama on an international level, and we are extremely happy to be able to offer a fascinating and multidimensional psychological thriller like Man in Room 301 to our audience.”

Eleanor Greene, executive producer from Wall to Wall Media, said; “In co-producing with Warner Bros Finland and Elisa Viihde, we were lucky enough to tap into the Finnish talent pool of writers, directors and producers to create a show that was both unique to the territory but also had a British storytelling sensibility. We can’t wait to see the final results.”