REinvent Studios on Nordic Drama Market

REinvent Studios CEO Rikke Ennis and Helene Aurø, the Copenhagen-based company’s sales and marketing director, talk to TV Drama about the Nordic drama market.

A relatively young player in the international TV market, the Copenhagen-based REinvent Studios launched about a year ago and has been steadily building up its catalog of Nordic drama ever since. More than just a distributor, the company bills itself as a packaging, sales and finance studio all in one. “These services go hand in hand and make the process of creating high-quality content with universal potential more smooth and easygoing,” says Ennis. “We like to look at REinvent as a one-stop shop.”

With regard to packaging, REinvent aims to get involved right at the start of a project, to help with things like finding writers and giving creative comments. “If somebody has the rights to a book or has a great idea, we can come in and help make the package ready for the market and take it out there,” explains Aurø.

REinvent can also assist with gap and bridge financing, helping production companies that may need financial assistance while a production is going on rather than further down the line.

The final pillar of the company is international sales, both coming in early to secure presales that can help in the financing and in bringing the finished programs out to the global marketplace.

REinvent’s focus is on fiction series with a Nordic tie. “It has to have a liaison with the Nordics somehow, but that’s quite broad,” says Aurø. “We do all types of fiction series—long-running series, procedurals, web series.”

In particular, she says that crime programming from the Nordic countries is in high demand these days. “There are a lot of people looking for web series as well for the younger target groups,” Aurø adds. “We don’t like to have too many series competing with each other in the catalog, so we don’t launch five crime series at the same time. We want to have something for different buyers.”

Having recently attended the Scandinavian Screenings, she emphasizes the breadth of content coming out of the Nordic countries—from comedy to shorter fiction series to youth web series. “Nordic noir is actually very broad,” Aurø says. “We can also do a crime show that is ‘Nordic bright.’ There are a lot of series coming out but in different formats and on different topics. Right now, there’s a tendency of making a number of series that are about relationships. We have a series from Iceland called Happily Never After, about a woman who finds out her husband is cheating on her and they wind up getting a divorce. We did hear a few pitches about relationship dramas. There’s a market for them, and they do quite well when it comes to remakes.”

“There is also a trend for epic series,” she continues. “A number of stations dare to show something that is not [Nordic] crime. That’s because viewers around the world are now more used to different languages and a number of the actors and actresses are quite well-known faces by now.”

Adding to the diversity of the company’s slate, REinvent has a deal with SF Studios to represent its next wave of original Nordic drama series.

Aurø acknowledges that there’s a lot of strong drama not only from the Scandi countries but from all corners of the globe, making competition these days ever more fierce. “To really make an impact, [a project] has to have some great creative people behind it,” she says. “Very good scriptwriters, a good director and, of course, the cast is extremely important as well. The story really has to be good. We like the ‘double story’—so it’s not just entertainment; there’s something more in the series, like taking up a topic in society. We also work with very new producers. We have a fourth leg in the company as well: we spend time looking at the very young ones coming out of the film schools. We keep a strong eye on them and try to build relationships at a very early stage.”