Norway’s Monster Thriller Wins European Script Award

Screenwriter Hans Christian Storrøsten was handed the European Script Award at the Helsinki Script Festival on Friday for seven-part Norwegian crime thriller Monster, which premieres 10th October on NRK,

In Monster, Jakob Oftebro plays Joel Dreyer, an investigator from Oslo who is sent to a remote community in Finnmark to work on a crime scene, where he collaborates with youthful local investigator Helle Gilbert (Ingvild Holthe Bygdnes) an ageing sheriff (Bjørn Sundquist) and comes up against criminal mastermind Margot van Gemert (Gørild Mauseth).

Created in 1987 by the EBU in conjunction with the European Alliance for Television and Culture (EATC), the European Script Awards (formerly the Prix Genève) showcases new writing talent in the television industry.

The jury said in their deliberation: “Monster is a strong character-driven thriller drama, a very clever and emotional crime story. All the story elements stand in complete service of the story plot.”

“From the complex characters, with their own fears, secrets, hopes and flaws to the beautiful desolated location in the north of Norway in which an extremist Christian religion can thrive in the community. It is simply by far the best told story.”