Two Jón Atli Jónasson Thrillers Invited To Cannes

Two crime thrillers by Icelandic playwright and screenwriter Jón Atli Jónasson (The Deep) have been invited to the inaugural CannesSeries (8 – 11 April). Violator has been selected for the In Development sidebar, whilst Arctic Circle will appear at the MIPDrama Buyers’ Summit.

Co-written by Ragnar Jonsson, Violator has been selected as one of twelve projects shortlisted from 344 submissions for the In Development sidebar, a two-day creative forum that provides screenwriters and producers the opportunity to pitch, finance and find international broadcast partners.

The series begins with Jonas, who joins Reykjavik Police in the late 1980s and goes on to become the youngest detective in the department’s history. He breaks new ground by using criminal profiling to investigate a sex crime, but things don’t turn out quite as expected.

Thirty years later, Lara is a detective with a dark secret who is ordered to investigate a suspicious death, and is shaken to her very core when she stumbles across Jonas’ old case files…

Meanwhile, ten-part Finnish drama Arctic Circle, co-written by Joona Tena, will be shown at the Cannes MIPDrama Buyers’ Summit on 8th April, when six international productions will be presented to over 450 TV executives.

In Arctic Circle, Detective Nina Kautsalo (Iina Kuustonen) finds a prostitute tied up in chains inside a remote cabin in the wilderness, and soon finds two other women dead at the same property. A deadly virus is found in the victim’s blood, whereupon German virologist Thomas Lorenz (Maximilian Bruckner) is sent to Lapland to join the investigation.

Arctic Circle premieres on Elisa Viihde this Christmas, and will air later on YLE.