Journal of Scandinavian Cinema - Volume 15, Issue 3, 2025

This article examines how Joachim Trier’s film Thelma (2017) links the unconscious death drive to external environmental instability, in particular, the crises exacerbated by Arctic amplification. Through its hybrid deployment of horror-psychological thriller and its mise en scène – such as the iceberg-like Oslo Opera House set piece, which conjoins an emblem of climate vulnerability with the death drive – the film dramatizes how ecological precarity and the unconscious are entwined. The article ultimately argues that Thelma’s initially destructive libidinal energy – manifesting in both environmental and interpersonal harm – is not eradicated but rechanneled towards provisional relationality. However, this transformation remains fraught: while Thelma appears to overcome the patriarchal control that determines her death drive, she risks reproducing colonial dynamics by psychically annexing her queer love interest, Anja. Analysing Thelma alongside the politics of green colonialism and Indigenous Sámi resistance to projects like Norway’s Fosen wind farm, the article traces both the promise and peril of a redirected drive, advancing the broader claim: while inherently linked to destruction, the death drive can become a site of relational possibility.

In this article, I identify two overarching incentives and four specific motivations behind the phenomenon of Danish runaway film and television production in the Czech Republic. These include economic motivations, such as fiscal incentives and cost-effective production, and aesthetic motivations, notably the availability of experienced local film crews and attractive locations. Drawing on desktop production studies of 21 Danish film and television projects produced between 2006 and 2023, I analyse the interplay of these factors in decisions to partially relocate production to Czech locations, typically in collaboration with the local production company and service provider Sirena Film. The findings indicate that while economic considerations are a primary driver for relocating production outside Denmark, these are frequently complemented and reinforced by practical and aesthetic motivations. The article concludes by situating these motivations within a broader national – and at times nationalistic – discourse surrounding the outsourcing of Danish audio-visual production.

This article provides the first examination of Norway’s film and television incentive scheme, introduced in 2016 as the first in Scandinavia. The scheme, offering a 25 per cent cash rebate on qualifying production costs, was designed to attract international productions, reduce domestic runaway production and promote regional development. Drawing on policy documents, evaluations and industry perspectives, the article explores the scheme’s implementation, objectives and ongoing debates. While the incentive has created work opportunities and boosted film tourism by attracting high-profile productions like Mission: Impossible, Norway has lost big productions due to limited budgets and restrictive conditions. Paradoxically, Norway is experiencing a ‘golden age’ of screen production, yet domestic film workers leave the industry due to limited work opportunities. Despite criticism, the government has remained passive. A high turnover of culture ministers since the implementation in 2016 has contributed to the scheme’s unsettled state and lack of strategic continuity.

The Nordic film industries offer extensive tax rebates and financial incentives to attract international runaway productions. In promotional PR surrounding these incentives, economic savings combine with colourful images of pristine natural landscapes and promises of professional crews and infrastructure. Amongst these ‘promises’ is environmental sustainability, which operates as one of the main attractions for reputation-aware international productions. Yet, runaway (or ‘mobile’) production exhibits an inherent clash between the promotional rhetoric of the incentives and the environmental impacts the productions generate. To analyse these practices, this short piece focuses on Finland, and Finnish Lapland in particular where such collaborations have been slow to develop. By offering a ‘package’ of solid infrastructure, economic stability, competitive financing and natural scenery, Film Lapland, the regional film commission, engages in competitive bidding for incoming productions but arguably undermines some of the environmental ideas it simultaneously promotes.

The article explores how the pursuit of sustainability in screen media production intersects with incentivized industry mobility within the Baltic Sea region. It illuminates an under-researched area of screen mobility by focusing on Swedish mobile productions benefitting from the tax incentive scheme in Lithuania. The authors conceptualize recent tendencies in screen mobility as the Nordic–Baltic screen regioscape, a place-oriented approach that views the region as connected rather than divided by the Baltic Sea and provides an analytic frame for moving beyond established centre–periphery models by emphasizing the reciprocal dynamics in film industries across borders. Focusing on social and environmental sustainability, the article contributes to current debates on the extent to which green transition goals are embedded and enacted in the policy and practice of the audio-visual sector. The regional scale, positioned between the national and the global, serves as an entry point for addressing concerns of social and environmental sustainability in the film industry.