‘Estonia’: How Creatives Behind One Of Scandinavia’s Most Expensive TV Series Of All Time Took An Ethical Approach To Ferry Tragedy Drama

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Creatives behind Estonia – one of Scandinavia’s most expensive drama series of all time – have opened up about the ethical issues surrounding a show spotlighting a tragedy that claimed the lives of 850 people.

Director Mans Månson, whose past credits include Chernobyl and Snabba Cash, described the cruiseferry’s sinking as a “total national trauma” that needed to be approached with the utmost sensibility, given that authorities are still investigating 30 years on. “We Scandinavians tend not to be involved with wars so rarely have loss of life on this scale,” he told Deadline, as the show distributed by Beta Film and made by several indies for a number of European networks prepares for launch at the Toronto International Film Festival’s Primetime program.

With budget estimated at around €15B ($16.4B) across eight episodes, Estonia (see an exclusive clip below) charts what happened after midnight on September 28 1994 when a catastrophic storm near Finland caused the sinking of the enormous ship – one of the worst tragedies to befall such a vessel since the Titanic – claiming 852 lives.

As the tragedy unfolds, pressing questions surface: How could this happen, was it human or technical failure, and who can be held accountable?