Norway has walked away from Canneseries as the big winner this year.
Two series from the Scandinavian country, A Better Man and Nepobaby, each bagged multiple trophies at the Canneseries Awards yesterday, while The Agent: The Life and Lies of My Father won Best Docuseries.
A Better Man took home the Best Series, the High School Award and Best Performance, with the latter award going to lead Anders Baasmo, who is known for roles in shows such as NRK miniseries An Immortal Man, Swedish film Arn – The Kingdom at Road’s End and Norway’s Kon-Tiki from 2012.
A Better Man follows Baasmo as Tom, a toxic male who blames feminism for everything, but is forced to hide in women’s clothing when his online trolling leads to hackers exposing his identity and most embarrassing secrets.
It comes from Norwegian producer Maipo Film in association with Lithuania’s Artbox, and is for NRK in Norway and ZDF Neo in Germany, with Beta Film handling international sales.
In the Best Series category, it beat Nepobaby, Malin-Sarah Gozin’s Dead End and Jonnydepony crime caper The Big Fuck Up from Belgium, German-Belgian series How to Kill Your Sister, Finnish show L/Over, Jean Charles Hue’s Malditos from France, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson-starrer Reykjavik Fusion and Korean psychological crime drama S Line.
Nepobaby, meanwhile, is for TV2 in Norway and produced Eldorado Content Club, with France’s Oble and Nordisk Film Distribution on sales. It’s from Siri Seljeseth and Pørni creator Henriette Steestrup, who stars alongside Vivild Falk Berg, Nicolai Cleve Broch, Henriette Steenstrup, Kristin Grue, Helle Eia and Deniz Kaya
It follows a woman, Emma (Berg), over one day as she discovers she is the heiress to one of Norway’s oldest and wealthiest shipping dynasties, and finds her new siblings are not pleased with her existence when her estranged father passes away.
The Agent: The Life and Lies of My Father is an NRK doc series about a man piecing together the life of his father, who may have been an undercover agent for the CIA. It took home the Best Docuseries award.
S Line won Best Music, while Oh, Otto!, a Belgian series set in the Brussels queer community won the Best Short Form and Student awards. French actress Marie Colomb won the Rising Star Award, Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan took home the Commitment Award and Eric Rochant and the cast of his crime drama Le Bureau des Légendes bagged the icon award.
