ORF-Enterprise Takes Global Rights to 'Crème de la Crème'

By Elena Vasquez

ORF-Enterprise, the distribution arm of Austrian broadcaster ORF, has acquired worldwide sales rights to "Crème de la Crème," a Finnish comedy drama about a young farmer who launches a sperm bank business. Finnish broadcaster YLE commissioned the series domestically. The deal signals a deliberate push by the Vienna-based seller into Nordic drama outside the crime genre.

Jukka Vidgrén, Topi Koljonen, Henna Rinnekangas, Juuso Laatio and Anna Heinämaa write and direct, with Vidgrén and Antti Kaarlela producing for Helsinki's Whatever Pictures.

The premise is blunt. Joonas, a young farmer, lives on his childhood dairy farm and takes pride in rural life. The farm sits on the brink of collapse. Then he sets up a booming sperm bank business with his friends.

Why does ORF see global potential in a Finnish farm comedy?

Armin Luttenberger, Head of Content Sales International at ORF-Enterprise, attributes the show's appeal to its "Finnish identity" — but argues its themes travel.

"Still, the underlying themes are highly universal: ambition, economic pressure, friendship and the question of how far you are willing to go to secure your future," Luttenberger said. "It feels very local without being culturally closed, which is often a strong combination for international audiences."

He also acknowledged the show cuts against international expectations of the region. "Nordic drama is still often associated internationally with crime, darker tones and a certain visual restraint. 'Crème de la Crème' brings a much more playful and irreverent energy," he said, adding that the series remains "unmistakably Nordic in its setting and sensibility, but it shows a different, more humorous side of the region."

The takeaway: ORF is betting that a locally rooted comedy can sell where Nordic noir already has.

What else is Whatever Pictures selling?

Crime remains central to the company's slate. At Mipcom, Whatever Pictures presented two thrillers:

• "Three Fires," a border thriller set in North Karelia
• "Ice House," an international assassin thriller co-written by Marteinn Thorisson and Aleksi Puranen

The company is also developing "Silent Herd," a scripted crime series with Norway's Rein Film. The story unfolds in a contemporary Sápmi community during the polar night, following an investigator forced back to the village they fled in youth after a childhood marked by bullying and exclusion.

Producer Aleksi Puranen framed the dual engine of the plot: "When suspicious deaths begin to expose old wounds within a powerful reindeer-herding family, the investigation becomes both a murder mystery and a personal reckoning."

How are the partners handling Sámi representation?

Rein Film's Mathis Ståhle Mathisen called the collaboration "very natural," noting that Sápmi spans both Norway and Finland, making a Finnish-Norwegian co-production "a logical creative and production choice." The two companies had already worked together on "A Midnight Sun Affair" and, in Mathisen's words, "share similar ambitions: to tell stories from the North with authenticity, strong local voices and international ambition."

Director Ken Are Bongo and writer Jens Martin Mienna, both Sámi, return to the partnership. Kaarlela said the series follows Sámi guidelines and cultural protocols, as on "A Midnight Sun Affair."

"We are not looking at the Sámi community from the outside," Kaarlela said. "Key creatives on the project, including Ken Are Bongo and Jens Martin Mienna, are Sámi themselves, and we are developing the series closely with them."

He addressed the thriller's dark material — "violence, shame, revenge and power within a small community" — directly, stressing these are not presented as "Sámi traits": "They are the dramatic territory of the genre, explored through specific Sámi characters and a specific Sápmi setting. The important thing for us is that the world is truthful, the authorship is connected to the community, and the characters are people first."

Puranen wants the series to be "gripping and atmospheric, but also more specific than a traditional Nordic noir," with landscape, darkness, family histories and unresolved trauma built into the storytelling. With "Crème de la Crème" now on ORF's international catalog and "Silent Herd" in development, Whatever Pictures is positioning itself on both ends of the Nordic spectrum: the region's humor and its darkness.