Helen Perquy: Celebs Rumors

Annika Pham Banijay Benelux’s Belgian banner Jonnydepony has set rising star Willem De Schryver from Netflix’s YA hit show” High Tides” (“Knokke Off”) for the title role of “I Was a Cop in the 80s,” ordered by Amazon Prime Netherlands and Flemish streamer Streamz. The period crime drama in development will be pitched by seasoned showrunner Philippe De Schepper (“Arcadia,” “Missing Persons Unit”), co-writer Bas Adriaensen and producer Helen Perquy (“Tabula Rasa”) as part of a Focus on Flanders at Göteborg’s forthcoming TV Drama Vision (Jan. 30-31).

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent“You’re a horse person?” a Belgian stable owner asks Johanna, a young Finnish journalist delving into the discovery of a microchip in a baby’s meat patty at a Helsinki daycare center. Only creator-director Auli Mantila’s own horse affiliations as a qualified farrier may explain in part one of the most singular of entries at this year’s Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize: “Transport.”This is Scandinavian crime drama, but “ordi-noir,” Mantila told the Nordisk Film & TV Fond newsletter, in that it “happens in broad daylight, involves people with no special talent or trauma, and takes place in locations anyone could just walk in.”It also addresses a massive but little explored subject, turning on pan-European food fraud which embroils three women: Marianne, a by-the-book bank loans exec forced to money launder earnings of a sinister food import company; an insurance investigator checking the disappearance of a border control veterinarian; and the indefatigable Johanna.

Annika Pham The Berlin Festival’s Finnish Shooting Star 2015 Emmi Parviainen (“Shadow Lines”), seasoned actor Maria Heiskanen (“Everlasting Moments”), Pirkko Hämäläinen (“Devil’s Bride”) and Belgian actor Geert van Rampelberg (“De Infiltrant”) are headlining the eight-part TV show “Transport.” Prix Europa winner Auli Mantila (“Silver Stars”, “The Geography of Fear”) will serve as its showrunner.Lensing the show is veteran DoP J-P Passi, multi-awarded for the film “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olly Mäki” and second unit DoP on “Chernobyl.”Veteran producer Miia Haavisto (“Tom of Finland”) and Tia Talli (“Nurses”) of Tekele are producing for Finnish pubcaster Yle.