All the Sins wins at Göteborg Film Festival

Written by former journalist Merja Aakko and film director Mika Ronkainen, the crime drama received the 20 000-euro prize after competing against six other films from Finland, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

“[W]e decided to give the award to the show that in our opinion took the most risks in storytelling and originality in character development,” Nordisk Film & TV Fond stated. “The winning series showed us a community under pressure and found new ways to deconstruct and play with the crime genre.”

All the Sins features Maria Sid and Johannes Holopainen in the leading roles as detectives Sanna Terho and Lauri Räihä, who are sent to work a murder case in Räihä’s (imaginary) religious childhood town of Varjakka. The detectives soon become entangled in their case-work and personal traumas, raising the question of whether all sins can be forgiven.

“The Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize is an amazing award that goes not only to the creators Merja Aakko and Mika Ronkainen and our team at Matila Röhr Productions, but to all Finnish producers of TV drama,” the series’ producer Ilkka Matila told Variety.

“We’ve often felt like the step-children in the big family of Nordic TV drama. Now we’re 100 per cent part of the family. It proves that our industry has matured.”

The series marks the TV drama debut for both Aakko and Ronkainen and will premiere on the Finnish video-on-demand service Elisa Viihde in April 2019.