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EXCLUSIVE: From dark to light – Piv Bernth, one of the architects of the Nordic Noir genre, is working on Feelings & Things, a comedy-drama set in a shopping mall. Bernth and her Apple Tree Productions banner are reuniting with Ditte Hansen and Louise Mieritz on the project, which they hope to shoot next year.
Bernth is behind some of the biggest Danish dramas ever. She produced shows including The Killing and The Bridge and as a commissioner greenlit series such as Borgen and Ride Upon The Storm, pioneering a wave of brooding high-end drama.
Now running her own prodco, the ITV Studios-backed Apple Tree, Bernth was speaking to Deadline at the Monte Carlo TV Festival, where she is on the jury in the fiction category.
“We are working on a comedy with Ditte Hansen and Louise Mieritz who did Chorus Girls,” Bernth told Deadline. “It’s set in a shopping mall and about the employees in the shops, which I think is quite universal.
“Things happen and the [employees] form a group and get a psychologist, who’s the worst ever, the cheapest in town, because the management won’t pay for it. It’s the same as Chorus Girls, the message is ‘we are stronger together.’”
Hansen and Mieritz are a writer-director-actor duo known for work including the Ditte & Louise comedy series and film of the same name. The pair worked with Apple Tree on the aforementioned Chorus Girls, a black comedy for Denmark’s TV2 and which follows eight dancers trying to survive in a sexist workplace and society.
“They are writing and directing again, and as in Chorus Girls will be playing small parts,” Bernth said. “They do everything and that’s because they thought there’s never anyone who writes good stories about women, and there’s no-one who gives us parts. There are no parts left for women in that 50-something age group.”
Apple Tree has a treatment and series arch for Feelings & Things and Hansen and Mieritz will work up the scripts after they wrap their current feature project. TV2 is likely the domestic broadcaster. Apple Tree is scouting for copro partners. ITV Studios’ sales arm will sell the series internationally.