Göteborg’s TV Drama Vision Spotlights ‘Happy Valley’ Star Sarah Lancashire, Flanders (EXCLUSIVE)

In an exclusive sneak-peek of its 2024 program, Cia Edström, head of the Göteborg Film Festival’s leading drama showcase TV Drama Vision, has unveiled that British actress Sarah Lancashire will be one of the 50-plus speakers due on-stage.

The star of BBC’s “Happy Valley,” Max’s “Julia” and Netflix’s forthcoming “Black Doves” will be joining Lars Blomgren, head of international at Media Res (“Scenes from a Marriage”) in a fireside chat where Lancashire will discuss her expanding career on both sides of the camera and new shingle Via Pictures.

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“Sarah is an amazing actress who is moving into content creation. No doubt her exclusive on-stage talk with the leading Scandinavian power-player Lars Blomgren will inspire our industry audience”, said Edström.

The 2024 edition of the must-attend Nordic TV confab, which is due to unspool Jan. 30-31 parallel to the Göteborg Film Festival, will be hosting its usual 500-plus international guests in a brand-new venue: the historic Draken 700-seater cinema and its connected Clarion Hotel Draken.

“It will be a game-changer for us to host TV Drama Vision in this one-stop-prestige venue,” Edström told Variety. “It’s been our dream for a while to find such an ace premise bringing together an iconic cinema with an integrated conference facility, plenty of meeting spaces and food & beverage,” Edström underscored.

As always, TV Drama Vision, the leading TV event for drama series in the Nordic region, will be taking the pulse of the latest industry trends, and this year’s focus will be on ‘Cultivating in a New Reality – a Toolbox for the Future’.

Next to Ampere Analysis’ market analyst Guy Bisson, media expert and Nostradamus Report author Johanna Koljonen, key industry experts and decision-makers -– to be announced at a later stage – will shed light on the current and future challenges facing the Nordic and European audiovisual industry: How, for example, the sector is adapting to the reshaping of financing models and the cooling of the entertainment landscape and how AI is impacting content creation, distribution, and audience engagement will be some of the topics to come under scrutiny.

“The European industry is undergoing a massive change and it’s come all at once. We aim to provide the industry a toolbox to hopefully unlock some keys to positive solutions going forward,” Edström added.

With European alliances quintessential to Nordic content creators’ ability to stay competitive in the global drama market, this year’s Focus on Flanders, will provide a useful overview of creative and financing collaborations between Belgium’s northern region and the Nordics.

The packed program of the Flanders Region in Focus’ co-organised with Flanders Images and Screen Flanders, will be revealed at a later date.

Göteborg’s TV Drama Vision forms a preamble to the Nordic Film Market (Jan. 31-Feb. 2), running alongside Scandinavia’s leading Göteborg Film Festival which due to unspool for the 47^th time between Jan. 26 and Feb. 4.

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