Arctic Circle (Finnish: Ivalo) is a Finnish-German crime drama television series that premiered on Finnish streaming service Elisa Viihde at Christmas 2018 and later on Yle.[1] The series stars Iina Kuustonen, Maximilian Brückner, Pihla Viitala, Clemens Schick[2] and Susanna Haavisto.
Arctic Circle is the first co-production between Finland's Yellow Film & TV and Germany's Bavaria Film, picked up for world distribution by Paris-based Lagardère Studios. The series was created by Yellow Film & TV CEO Olli Haikka and Head of Drama Petja Peltomaa with Joona Tena who shares the writing credit with Iceland's experienced Jón Atli Jónasson.[3] Arctic Circle is directed by Finnish-born, Germany-based Hannu Salonen, Juha Lankinen and Jussi Hiltunen.
Set in an icy Finnish Lapland, in series 1, Finnish police officer Nina Kautsalo (Iina Kuustonen) finds a nearly dead prostitute in a cabin in the wilderness. The case takes a surprising turn when a deadly virus is found in the prostitute's body. Nina and German virologist Thomas Lorenz (Maximilian Brückner) start investigating the case.
In November 2017, it was announced that the main cast would consist of Iina Kuustonen, Maximilian Brückner, Clemens Schick and Pihla Viitala.[4] It was also announced that filming of season one would begin in Finland later that month, on the 27th of November 2017.[5] Filming of season 2 took place in Finnish Lapland during the autumn of 2020 and later winter/early spring of 2021.[6]
The series aired on ZDF in Germany in 2020.[7] In North America the rights to the series were acquired by Topic. As part of its ongoing distribution deal Lagardère Studios Distribution also sold the rights to Polar+ (France), RTS (Switzerland), BeTV (Belgium), Videotron (Canada), NPO (The Netherlands), IVI (Russia), Canal Plus (Poland), RTP (Portugal), Cosmopolitan TV (Spain), Elisa (China) and FTV Outre-mer 1e (France overseas).[8]